A Forex Trading Journal to Track Your Performance
Creating
and maintaining a Forex trading journal is one of the most important
pieces of the puzzle of professional Forex trading. In today’s lesson, I
am going to give you a trading journal to log all your trades. I
guarantee this will help your trading and mindset.In last week’s article I discussed what a typical day in the life of a professional Forex trader is like. I am going to first explain to you why having a Forex trading journal is essential to becoming a professional trader, and then I am going to show you what my trading journal looks like so that you get an idea of how to make your own. By the end of this article you will be able to create your very own Forex trading journal, and this is a huge step in the direction of becoming a professional trader.
If Your Impatient and Can’t wait to the end of this article. You can download my Forex Trading Journal here – I Track All My Trades Using This Spreadsheet. Please Make a comment after reading this article and Click The Facebook ‘Like Button”, Pay it forward and share it around with other traders.
Why do I need a Forex trading journal Nial?
First off, you need a trading journal because you need to track your trading performance over time. Many aspiring traders get caught up on the results of each individual trade; however, the professional trader knows that their trading performance is measured over a long series of trades, not just one or two. So, it’s important to have a way to track your results so that you can see how you are doing over a series of trades, this allows you to not get caught up on any individual trade. You can think of your trading journal as a constant and tangible reminder that your trading performance is measured over a series of trades. Having this type of reminder is very important, especially early-on in your trading career, it helps keep you focused and it helps to remove any emotion you might attach to any one trade.Next, developing a track record is something you should take pride and pleasure in doing. If you have a tangible track record that shows your ability to be consistent and disciplined over time, you won’t want to mess up this display of mental strength by committing emotional or stupid trading mistakes. In this way, a trading journal works to keep you accountable, you need something to be accountable to as you trade, because there is no boss looking over your shoulder threatening to fire you if you don’t do XYZ exactly right. If you don’t have a lot of money to trade with, creating a track record that shows consistent trading results over a long period of time is proof that you CAN trade, and if you have this proof you can find people to fund you. So, as we can now see, creating and maintaining a Forex trading journal is a key element to any effective Forex trading plan.
Finally, as we discussed in last week’s article about a day in the life of a pro trader, your trading should be a routine. Creating and maintaining a trading journal gives you the structure required to build your trading routine on and it also helps you examine and focus on each individual element of a trade, which we will discuss below. Essentially, Forex trading success is the result of doing a lot of things the right way every time you interact with the market, and a Forex trading journal helps you do everything the right way every time you trade.
What should my trading journal include and how do I make one?
The images below are actual screen shots of my trading journal. I have entered example trade parameters below each heading just for demonstration purposes; it wasn’t an actual trade that I took, although it was a good price trading action setup. However, this is the same trading journal I use; you can use it too if you like, or tweak it to your desire.
– Entry date: This is self-explanatory; the date you entered the trade, the date you got filled is what you want here (if the order got filled). If the order never gets filled just delete it from you journal.
– Security / FX pair: The particular security traded, this will either be a currency pair or Gold / Silver for most of us. If you are unsure which currency pairs are best to trade, check out this article: best Forex currency pairs to trade?
– Entry B / S: Here you enter whether you bought or sold and record the specific level/price you entered at.
– Planned Stop and Planned Target: You will put your pre-determined stop and target price in these boxes. It’s very important to pre-define your stop level and target level. If you have pre-determined that you will trail your stop, you can just type something in this box describing your trail method, for example you might type; “trail stop each time trade moves 1 times risk in my favor”.
– Possible $ Risk: How much money can you lose on the trade?
– Possible $ Reward: How much money are you aiming to make on the trade?
– Position size (lots): Your position size on the trade, or the number of micro / mini / standard lots being traded. To learn more about position size click here: Forex position sizing.
– Exit Price: What price did you actually exit the trade at? To learn about exiting trades click here: Know When to Hold em, Know When to Fold em.
– Pips +/-: How many pips you gained or lost on the trade.
– Total P/L: How much total money you made or lost on the trade.
– Planned R:R : What was the pre-defined risk reward ratio of the trade?
– Actual R:R : What did the risk reward ratio actually end up being? This is important, if you aren’t achieving a risk reward of 1:2 or greater on your winning trades, you will see that over time it’s very hard to make money in the markets. Also, you will notice that if you take profits prematurely this greatly lowers your risk : reward ratio, and of course if you take a risk that is larger than what you had planned the same thing happens.
– Exit date: Date the trade closed.
– Setup: What was the setup / why did you take the trade? Did you trade a valid price action trading strategy?
Final thoughts
Documenting your Forex trading results is a necessary component to becoming a professional Forex trader. As your trading journal progresses over a series of trades, you will start to see the significance of it more clearly. The power of risk reward and money management will become glaringly evident to you as you look over your trading journal after a few months go by. Having this tangible piece of evidence to explicitly show you how discipline and patience pay off over time, is a critical element to attaining and maintaining the proper Forex trading mindset. The reality of Forex trading is that at some point on your journey of learning how to trade, you absolutely have to figure out a way to become a disciplined and organized trader, otherwise you simply will not become successful in the markets. Creating and meticulously maintaining a Forex trading journal is the quickest and most effective way to develop into a disciplined and profitable Forex trader.You can download the Forex trading journal that I use – click here to download the forex trading journal spreadsheet excel file (you will need ms office to open this file).
About Nial Fuller
Nial Fuller is a Professional Trader & Author who is considered ‘The Authority’ on Price Action Trading. He has a monthly readership of 250,000+ traders and has taught 15,000+ students since 2008. Checkout Nial's Professional Forex Course here.
- Nial Fuller’s Price Action Forex Trading Course. Learn Advanced Price Action Strategies & High Probability Trade Entry Signals That Work
You are a TRUE TEACHER. THANKS A LOT
It is the most practical and useful Journal that I have seen, most of them are full of so much B/S you cannot see the trees for the woods and I have ended up just not using one which is definitely not a good idea!
Your mentoring is among the best of any I have followed in my 8 years of trading forex.
Keep up the good work.
Kind regards,
Clinton Webb
Jack, Australia
As everyone else has already said, THANK YOU for this article, this spreadsheet and all the other information that you are providing.
I have added another column to the sheet; “Mindset” where I rank my “mood” on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s a totally subjective point system where I factor in my positive/negative frame of mind (good mood/bad mood), the distractions I have at the moment, and other things which affect my trading decision. For the sake of being as honest as possible with myself, it’s important to enter this number in BEFORE I see the results of the trade. I find that it’s another way to see what is working and what is not.
Thank you again!
lot of things from it concerning blogging. thanks.
You are a gifted teacher.
Daniel.
Your journal is much clearer than mine esp excel format.
I will use urs…
Yemi, London
Congratulation your Work.
Very useful information
Kahn from Sydney
cheers fatimah
wess
kenya
mahdi
Jay
God bless Nial for us all.
OKENTA
As most of the trades involve swaps/interest, do we take them into account into our journal?
A newbie here.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks Nial for the spreadsheet journal, very useful!
I have set mine up!
Thanks
Thanks a lot, I have added one more column to mine also:
What happend after Exit?
– Did it go further in the right direction, or what?
For me this is a help, because I can see that I sometimes set the SL to close, or get in to quick.
So now I can follow up if my setup is right, but maybe my entry or SL was wrong.
Another great article to help us maintain trading discipline and become successful.
Many Thanks
The spreadsheet is bound to provide a more detailed analysis of my trading from now on.
Keep up the good work !
you are changing my life of trading entirely to professional trader.
Your article above helped me on the track. Thanks a lot.
rikus
I will complet my trading journal with yours.
Regards
Behzad
Guys, I do trade and this template which Nial has given you is awesome in many ways. Let me briefly explain:
Not only does it make you accountable, it gives you a thorugh trading plan. Too many amateur traders put money into the market and think there going to get rich on one trade. Even more painfiul is the fact that they think there accounts will triple or even quadruple in one trade.
This template will teach you consistency, and will train your eyes to always lock on to exactly where you entered/ exit a trade in terms of pip value. This will get you guys out of the habit of thinking about money and looking at the FX market more carefully interms of probability. It will also teach you to take profits without being greedy.
Guys, I cannot stress enough how trading is a marathon not a sprint! so please take heed and use all this information that Nial is giving away. I have seen a few top trading professionals and let me be quite frank, they think interms of safety and not risk. Be safe and use this tool too your advantage. It is dead easy!
To see the full benefit os this template please view Nial’s lesson on Risk To Reward, becasue shows you how you could lose far more trades than you win and still be a winner!
Thanks again Nial, God Bless!
Adam Ihsan
This is a gem. My own journal is too complicated, being more detailed, that is. I rarely use the extra data that I imput and moreover, it is manual (pencil on paper)rather that electronic… old technology but it doesn’t go down.
Many thanks for your constant lessons.
Best regards,
William
Thanks Nial :-)
Hope you are well. Thanks for another informative and brialliant article.
Thanks and Regards
Gurpal
I may organise my journal as proffesional trader like you.
Usually mine, I will draw the P.A pattern as well.
Thanks.
Cheers
Great article!
In additional to the journal, I also do video recordings of the trades that I will take. That way I can review the trades that I took and learn from it.
King
Thanks Nial, your the only out there that I’ve come across who covers everything.
Steve
Thanks and cheers
EW
Thanks again Nial.
Nial – Would it be possible for you to show your written trading plan? In particular how it is layed out – your rules.
This may help me write my own.
Regards
Another great article with excel bonus!!!
Well explain with visual add, can be more easy!!
Thanks
Souto
Nice journal though. Thx a lot. ;)
You really do help us guys and i just want to say a big thank you for doing this journal, really appreciate it
Excellent tool to use – sets things out really well and makes things that little bit more easier. It is vital to trading you keep records and this excellent yet simple tool does that – thanks Nial.
Excellent comment from Graham – could not agree more. It takes a lot of time to learn to trade but with Nial you have an edge that will make it a lot easier and shorten the learning curve.
Good luck all
Cheers,
Adam
new windows versions don’t prompt for this.
I believe trading is at least 90% psychology and requires a lot of personal transformation work with emotional states and trading mental strategies. I am moving into my new trading office shortly and although I have a trading journal, I am always looking for new ideas. What I love about Nial’s journal is the simple visual record to keep me accountable and responsible for my trading decisions. Keeping a balanced emotional state with a proven trading journal tool like this is a record of fact, I can not deny.
Thanks for your lesson Nial
You seriously have my attention.
Steve
You are wonderfull!!
Loreto from Spain
I already have a trading journal, but some elements were missing, so I’ll complete it with yours.
Thank you for sharing it, I find it very helpful.
Graham