This is a very simple journal that has the following information:
- Date - just as a reference
- Gross P/L - This is the gross profit or loss of a give day
- Net P/L - This is the Gross P/L minus the trading costs
- Volume - Volume traded in a given day
- Number of stocks traded - this is the number of stocks I traded during the trading day
- Number of gross positive stocks - this is the number of stocks that I ended gross positive in a day
- Best and Worst Stock - here I keep the best and worst stock I traded during the day
- Ticket Average - The ticket average
- Number of trades
- Number of positive trades
- Number of positive trades that had a gross profit greater than .10 cents (big winners)
- Number of negative trades that had a gross profit smaller than .15 cents (big losers)
- Morning ticket average
- Mid-day ticket average
- Closing ticket average
- Liquidity Added - this was recently add cause I want to improve my adding liquidity skills
With the following information you can find patterns in your trading, for example:
- Are you more profitable in the morning or the afternoon? If afternoon is the time you trade better, then your risk should be greater at this time of the day
- Do you trade better if you trade a lot of stocks or if you trade just one or two?
- Does your money come from big winners or a lot of small winners?
The real edge from this journal is not the record data in it, but to find patterns where you can maximize your profit an take advantage of them. You must analyze the information here from time to time, searching for your strengths and weakness. Focus on exploring what you do better and try to improve what you are not good.
Another example is the "Liquidity Added" column. I recently added to my journal cause I was doing a poor job adding liquidity to the market. I was taking too much, so I decided I must learn how to add liquidity to the market. My average index is now at 34%. My target is to have an average of 50% at least, meaning the I will add liquidity in 50% of my trades. This will change my cost/per and at the end my net P/L, since my costs will be smaller.
You will see that there is no magic formula here. What works for me, may not work for you due to different trading styles, but at the end, having the information to analyse latter is the first step in becoming a profitable trader.
To get back to the introduction post and continue learning about the journals click me.
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