Well, I got no responses when I posted this in the Trading forum, not sure where to post it. Thought I'd try here: I just bought an Excel FX trading journal and I'm wondering if some of you more experienced traders w/a "statistical bent" could comment on some of the things you look at in your own journals to monitor and (I'm assuming) refine your trading. Not asking for state secrets, but if there's something you'd like to share that has helped you in this respect it would be appreciated. Here's a screenshot of the pivot table field list that contains all the statistics that come w/this journal: http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b313/Hcour/FXExcelJournalSS.gif Since I know very little about Excel, the pivot tables are proving very useful, they're pretty amazing. Right now I'm looking at pretty basic stuff, I got these from Farley's book: % Win - winners/total trades Avg Win - total profits/winning trades Avg Loss = total losses/losing trades One can also add one's own custom calculations and I plan to add a couple more calculations to the journal right away. I read about this in Pristine's mag, of all places, but it made sense to moi: If you track the "maximum" amount the instrument traveled, you can compare the ratio of the target you sought compared to the full potential....The other question to answer is "What % of my intended target am I actually attaining?" Another calculation I'm thinking of adding is the maximum amount the instrument traded in the opposite direction on those trades on which I was initially stopped out w/a loss. Perhaps this would help one adjust one's stops? (Please keep in mind that I'm very new to the whole "statistics thing".) I suppose I should point out that I'm a discretionary trader, swing-trading w/a holding period of few days to a few weeks. Any comments or suggestions re: statistics would be appreciated. Thanks much, Harold
Hi Harold, I will attempt an answer but firstly, how much did you pay for your journal? Your journal will (should) reflect your trading plan. Whatever is in your trading plan should be tracked within your journal. Modify the plan and you modify your journal. The modifications to the plan will more than likely come from the journal. FWIW, I do not track a great deal of info. I print out my order book each day and make notations against the entries, handwrote a couple of calcs for the day, and then file the whole away. The next morning I spend a few minutes reviewing yesterdays performance and reviewing the daily/weekly bars of the ES ( that is all I trade) I form a picture of what is likely to happen today and check for any announcements. Broadly speaking, my trading plan has become 2nd nature to me now, but that was not always the case. In the beginning I over worked and over analyzed everything despite the fact that I knew "less is more"
fl9, Thanks for the input. The guy is practically giving away the Excel journal, $20. I posted a link to it (w/Baron's permission) in the FX section, for anyone interested. It's just basic stuff, but that's mostly what I'm interested in, I'm not a statistics guy, and as one who is mostly Excel-ignorant, it does give me a foundation to build upon for the kind of specifics to my trading-plan I may need, as you say. My post was mostly prompted by something Mark (NihabaAshi) wrote recently that I found interesting. Something along the lines that the more successful a trader becomes, he tends to focus less on just profits and more on other statistics that relate to his trading. I was just interested in what some of those statistics might be. Thanks again, H