It is quite popular idea that each trader should have his trading journal and write down al his trades to analyse them, but how many traders actually do this? If yes, what information you find necessary to write down? Sometimes it takes too much time to make such records, especially if you are an active daytrader making up to 10 trades per day. Are there any solutions to improve the whole process to make it less time-consuming? I`ll greatly appreciate any your thought and ideas about this
I wrote code to take screenshots automatically which I can review later. The description is filled in automatically based on whatever I'm doing at the moment. It's been super helpful.
I've seen polls in the past at various forums about numbers of traders with trade journals. The best I've seen was around 23% of retail traders have a trade journal or somewhere near those percentages. That was via a poll I saw prior to 2015 although I'm not sure how its broken down into public trade journals versus private trade journals. In today's digital age...you really do not need to write down anything. Most just make a redacted screenshot, copy and paste the info into a spreadsheet, online diary, blog, forum message post or use a professional trade journal software. The latest theme for trade journals is live recordings and/or live streaming regardless if the trader is profitable or not. Unfortunately, those viewing the recordings/live streams see the those that are profitable as bragging and those that are not profitable as someone that's the real deal. In the old days...writing (pencil/pen) down a trade was the norm and was too tough to do for most because its time consuming. Yet, I'm a little confused with all the digital technology today that makes keeping a trade journal very easy...the number of traders with trade journals seem to have lessen...not increased. Just as concerning...a typical trade journal last no more than a few months. Oddly, those with public trade journals will either delete their online presence when something changes in their trading as if the trade journal is a threat to their well being or they're unable to look at themself because the trade journal is like looking in the mirror. In my opinion, a trade journal should be private for a few months before going public and should always begin via the route of a professional trade journal software prior to merging or traversing into other things like a public discussion forum, live streaming (Yahoo Live, Twitch, Discord), social media (Twitter, Stocktwits, TradingView) or whatever the format. Most public trade journals involves traders asking for help, opinions about their trading. Other trade journals involves giving others a peek view into how they're trading and viewing the price action of the markets they're trading. At the minimum...a trade journal should have a copy of the statistical analysis info (quantitative statistical analysis) that the broker gives the trader about their trade performance and I'm not talking about a broker statement. Most brokers have basic stats about the trade performance for the trader to copy and/or download that was embedded in the trade execution platform...some in real time and others do it at the end of the day. wrbtrader
If your trading has adequate structure and characteristics, you may be able to merely parse your trade log, and reconstruct the information you need, without manual (and error-prone) effort. The codeing, will require the "thinking", not any management of the trade log (implies you are able to infer from the actual trades, the information you need). This will likely require access to additional information, or a database of historic prices to provide comprehensive information. -- I do this, but my trading is focused on very few instruments (SPX and VXX options).