How do you guys score/review your trades? Do you score each trade separately or do you review each session as a whole? My trade review has been a constant WIP for a few months now but still doesn't feel quite right. I am trying to find the balance between tracking the nuances of each trade but not getting lost in the weeds. This is along the lines of my current version. I also include a screenshot next to each trade write up. Trade Details Market & TF: Date & Time: Position Size: Entry Price: Exit Price: Direction: Market Context Market Conditions: News or Catalyst: Overall Market Behaviour: Trade Rationale Setup: Reason for Entry: Stop Loss/Exit Strategy: Risk/Reward: Execution Review Entry Timing: Exit Timing: Size Management: Result & Performance Profit/Loss: Execution Grade: Emotion Rating: Rule Adherence: Lessons Learned Takeaways: Improvements: Any input or suggestions are welcome
My reviews are fairly simple. Did I follow my trading plan. Yes or No. If not I have to write out my rationalization for deviating from the plan.
Do you write up a new trading plan each day for the current market conditions/context and how you plan to execute your strategy in those conditions? or Does your trading plan already cover that?
“Profits take care of themselves” What I would write down is stuff to improve. Focus on the ugly, then the bad, then the good. For example … I used to trade without stops. -> Find a way to always have a logical stop. I used to trade with too wide a stop. -> Find a way to trade only with tight stop. I used to try to catch top and bottom. -> Find a way to never buck the trend. You know how you can improve, Write down your thoughts and update the plan. Maybe the reasons for each action. But keep it simple ! That’s my take. I follow the tape. I have no plan for the day. My system tells me … Buy, Hold, Sell.
Good Morning Cam12, How will you know which of these data points to change, delete or optimize if after X months/weeks/years your cumulative total profits from all your trading is Negative or total losses?
The problem with these kinds of elaborate writeups is that it's tedious and unnecessary to elaborate on each of those points for every trade - or at least, it was for me. It also leads to missing the forest for the trees. (Ofc stuff like symbol and trade rationale is just basic record-keeping so obviously needs to be logged) What you are after are recurring failure modes, which can be either errors in your execution or holes in your methodology. Failures need to be distinguished from normal variance. I ended up using colored cells in Excel along with columns for the major discretionary elements or segments of my trade management: green for good (or good enough), orange for questionable and red when I do something clearly wrong. A text note accompanies the latter two cases. Any failure mode which occurs more than once gets specifically addressed in my methodology and its own brief writeup in another file.
I only paper trades, don't take me too seriously. I am posting to see if I can improve my method of analyzing my studies: During the first three months, I downloaded all my trades into a spread sheet, also image-captured every entry/exit on the price chart. After I finished the my trading session, I reviewed each trade, examined each entry/exit, tried a few what-iff and writeup lessons learned, figuring adjustments for next day... On Saturday/Sunday, reviewed the tradings done for the week and tried to make adjustment for the following week. Rinse and repeat for 12 weeks. I analyzed a total of ~1,000 trades. After that, still kept excel but stopped making adjustments, simply collected statistics of my "method". It's been over 9 months so far an additional ~2,000 trades. I don't think the results have reached what we called statistically significant results yet. There is another ~2,000 data points to go before I can say it is statistically significant.
It seems like you're making things too complicated. As a discretionary trader you don't have the time to think and the more things you have to think about the more mistakes you will make. My advice is you need to simplify your approach as much as you can until it becomes more mechanical which some discretionary features. As a human trade you are not good as being discretionary and reading things accurately. So the more mechanical you can make your system the better. For example do you really need to think about something like position sizes? Are you sure you can accurately read market conditions? What is Emotion Rating? If you mean don't trade if you are emotional then good. Especially don't trade if you feel you are getting stressed because it makes you revenge trade.
wtf is a Discretionary trader anyway? i'm a gambler? i have no clue what i will do when i feel like it i take a position? i stare at the chart and think hey they are running off without me i better get in? i see a fast move and i fight it? i mean wtf are you doing? if i have rules they change by the minute?