Part of trading is keeping a journal of some description, and day charts allows you some time to devote to analyzing missed opportunities / losses and the wins.
I always keep screen shots of all of my entries and final trade positions and then if I'm a really good boy I'll copy these into a powerpoint and add comments. This coupled with the account summaries / statements and I have a full story of my entry criteria / history of the trade and exit criteria.
For the wins, it is just as important to review what went well, especially seeing as we all too often beat ourselves to a pulp on the losses!
For my wins, I review the entry to see if I jumped the gun, was late or hit the goldilocks candle. Equally, did I get lucky off of a dodgy entry and it pulled back and now I look really cool sitting on a pot of lucky pips.
For the losses - then look for the root cause and the following Options:
Trading into conjestion / resistance / support
False signal - trade reversed after valid entry criteria
Entry signal was not optimal - reasons?
Reversal didn't follow through - overall trend took prescedence
Higher timeframes did not support the entry
Aliens abducted the trade
Shit happens
What else?
Happy journalling
I always keep screen shots of all of my entries and final trade positions and then if I'm a really good boy I'll copy these into a powerpoint and add comments. This coupled with the account summaries / statements and I have a full story of my entry criteria / history of the trade and exit criteria.
For the wins, it is just as important to review what went well, especially seeing as we all too often beat ourselves to a pulp on the losses!
For my wins, I review the entry to see if I jumped the gun, was late or hit the goldilocks candle. Equally, did I get lucky off of a dodgy entry and it pulled back and now I look really cool sitting on a pot of lucky pips.
For the losses - then look for the root cause and the following Options:
Trading into conjestion / resistance / support
False signal - trade reversed after valid entry criteria
Entry signal was not optimal - reasons?
Reversal didn't follow through - overall trend took prescedence
Higher timeframes did not support the entry
Aliens abducted the trade
Shit happens
What else?
Happy journalling
"To live with Passion, it takes Courage and Grace to survive"