Which trading journal should we follow?

<p id="isPasted">Many traders often spend hours developing and refining their strategies, but, in the end, something still doesn’t work. It is pointless to keep doing this if you don’t try to find the weak spots first. The best way to separate the most profitable strategies from the others is to start with the best trading journal for your needs and budget.</p><p>The 5 Best Trading Journals</p><p>Edgewonk: Best online trading journal at a reasonable price</p><p>TraderSync: Best trading journal app with 100+ supported brokers and AI-functionalities</p><p>Tradervue: Long-term existing trading journal with enhanced journaling</p><p>Trademetria: Robust trading journal with portfolio tracker and strategy backtesting</p><p>Microsoft Excel: Best trading journal software for individual analysis and programming</p>

<p id="isPasted">The hardest thing with trading journals is deciding to start and building the habit of maintaining consistency. Afterward, everything comes in place. If you struggle to begin your trade journal, picture your end goal, probably becoming a better trader. Try to paint that in numbers – for example, increasing your profitability by X%. It is proven that having a measurable goal boosts motivation and helps you remain focused.</p><p>You can start keeping records of your trade history in several ways. A text document, an Excel worksheet, a free or a paid third-party service – you have a wide range of options. To narrow down your choices, let’s go through some basic tips on what should be included.</p><p>Automated trade history import: This is a convenient feature that will save plenty of time and effort. The most popular third-party solutions have direct integration with brokers and trading platforms. That way, your trade history can be uploaded with just a few clicks.</p><p>Report and analysis tools: These features are the most important ones. The automated analysis of your data will help you derive conclusions and extract essential bits of information about your style, mistakes, market moves, and more. That way, you will be more prepared the next time you trade and significantly optimize your overall performance.</p><p>Advanced features: Looking at graphs and previous trades is one thing. Having access to advanced features for backtesting, trade management evaluation, classifiers, trade optimization, and more can bring your game to another level.</p><p>Last but not least, a trade journal should not come at an exorbitant price. In the end, it is just a tool that is intended to help you become better, not lay fundamentals.</p>

<p id="isPasted">Here’s some advice for keeping a helpful trading journal:</p><p>Always begin the journal before the trade, and end it after the trade.</p><p>Write down everything. Don’t leave anything out. Be honest. If you decided to play Call of Duty while you were in a trade and forgot to exit your trade, write that down, and explain why.</p><p>Pay very close attention to your emotions. Then make sure you write them down.</p><p>Make sure the journal includes observations about you and your trading and about the forex market. We’ve found that trading journals are usually skewed toward self-analysis and include little in the way of market observation.</p><p>Take a screenshot of intraday charts of each day’s action and write comments on them. Make note of patterns that you are watching</p><p>After a couple of months, you will start to see the patterns emerging in real-time.</p><p>A trading journal is a learning tool and a great mechanism for training your eye to see the setups you want to be trading.</p><p>Nothing is too silly to record inside your journal. Write it down. Write down whether you missed a trade because you were watching the latest episode of The Crown or playing Call of Duty or you were busy talking to your sweetheart. Write it all down!</p>

<p id="isPasted">At the end of each week and month, go back and see what you did, notice common problems, and spot your strengths. These observations can help you exploit your strengths and highlight the areas you need to work on.</p><p>Taking screenshots is more effective at capturing information than just writing in a journal. If you do want to write stuff down, you can do so right on your charts or keep a written trading journal as well. Be diligent in this routine so that you have every trade you make recorded.</p>

<p><br>At a bare minimum, your trading journal should include your daily profit or loss and some notes about the broader market conditions. You should aim to include much more. Any thought you have about why you're taking a trade, why it worked, or why it didn't will be helpful to review later. Details about your exact entry and exit points can help you better recreate trades to adjust your strategy. In general, the more information you include, the more insight you will glean as to which trade strategies are working and which aren't.</p>