If you are an active trader, you understand the importance of analyzing your past trades to identify what worked and what did not. This information can help you make more informed decisions in the future and ultimately increase your profits. One way to do this is by using our market replay simulator, which allows you to replay your past trades as if they were happening in real-time.

TraderSync’s Market replay simulator is a powerful tool that allow you to test your strategies, identify mistakes, and learn from your past trades. Our simulator works by replaying market data from a specific date and time, allowing you to analyze your past trades as if they were happening in real-time. This can be a valuable tool for traders who want to refine their trading strategies and maximize their profits.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to use TraderSync’s market replay simulator to identify ways to make more profits from your past trades and how to minimize your losses.

 

Identifying Ways to Make More Profits

The first step in using our market replay simulator to identify ways to make more profits is to review your past trades. Look for patterns in your trading that may indicate where you could have made more profits. For example, did you miss out on potential gains by exiting a trade too early? Did you hold onto a losing position for too long?

Once you have identified areas for improvement, use the market replay simulator to replay those trades and test different scenarios. For example, if you exited a trade too early, replay the trade and experiment with holding onto the position for a longer period of time. See if this would have resulted in more profits.

Another way to use the trading sim is to test different trading strategies. Replay your past trades and experiment with different entry and exit points. See if there are any patterns in the market data that can help you identify profitable trades.

You can also use the market replay simulator to test different risk management strategies. For example, if you tend to take on too much risk, replay your past trades and experiment with using stop-loss orders to minimize your losses. See if this would have resulted in higher profits.

Overall, the key to using our market replay is to identify ways to make more profits is to be open to experimentation. Try out different scenarios and strategies to see what works best for you.

 

Minimizing Losses

In addition to identifying ways to make more profits, our simulator can also help you minimize your losses. Losses are an inevitable part of trading, but it is important to keep them as small as possible to protect your capital.

One way to use our market replay simulator to minimize your losses is to identify patterns in your losing trades. Are there certain market conditions that tend to result in losses for you? If so, replay those trades and experiment with different strategies to see if you can minimize your losses.

You can also use the market replay simulator to test different risk management strategies. For example, if you tend to take on too much risk, replay your past trades and experiment with using stop-loss orders to minimize your losses. See if this would have resulted in smaller losses.

Another way to use the market replay simulator to minimize your losses is to test different exit strategies. For example, if you tend to hold onto losing positions for too long, replay those trades and experiment with exiting the position earlier. See if this would have resulted in smaller losses.

Overall, the key to using a market replay simulator to minimize your losses is to be open to experimentation. Try out different strategies to see what works best for you.

Conclusion Using Market Replay Simulator

In conclusion, TraderSync’s replay simulator is a powerful tool that can help you identify ways to make more profits from your past trades and minimize your losses. By reviewing your past trades, experimenting with different scenarios, and testing different strategies, you can refine your trading approach and become more profitable.
Start you 7-day free trial today, no payment is needed. 

 

 

As a day trader, you are blessed to have one of the best jobs in the world, but at the same time, it is incredibly challenging. As a day trader, it’s important to review your trades at the end of each week to identify what worked well and what didn’t, in order to continuously improve your strategies and minimize your losses. In this blog post, we will discuss a weekly trading journal routine you can try, which includes reviewing your best trades, learning from your mistakes, and replaying them in a trading simulator.

Reviewing your best trades

One of the first things to do when reviewing your day trading performance is to take a closer look at your best trades on the week. These are the trades where you made the most profit or had the best risk-reward ratio. By analyzing what you did right in these trades, you can identify patterns and strategies that you can use in the future.

For example, if you notice that you made a significant profit in a particular trade by entering and exiting at specific price points, you will make a note of these levels and try to replicate this strategy in future trades. Likewise, if you notice that you consistently made good trades at a particular time of day or in a specific market, you can look for opportunities to take advantage of these patterns in the future.

By reviewing your best trades each week, you are able to identify what worked well and build on those successes in future trades. This is a key component of becoming a successful day trader. A weekly trading journal routine keeps you balanced and centered on whether you are improving upon previous weeks’ lessons, or suffering further from those trading mistakes.

Learning from your mistakes

In addition to reviewing your best trades, you should also spend time reviewing your mistakes and worst trades. No matter how experienced a trader you may be, mistakes are inevitable. However, it is important to learn from these mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future.

When reviewing your mistakes,  ask yourself a few key questions:

  • What went wrong in this trade?
  • What could you have done differently?
  • What did you learn from this experience?
  • What will you do differently next time?

By answering these questions honestly and objectively, you can identify areas where you need to improve your trading strategies or your mindset. For example, if you notice that you consistently make impulsive trades based on emotions rather than logic, you may need to work on your discipline and emotional control.

It’s important to approach mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow, rather than as failures. By doing so, you can continually improve your day trading performance and become a more successful trader over time.

Replaying trades in a trading simulator

Finally, after reviewing your best trades and learning from your mistakes,  spend time replaying some of your trades in a trading simulator. A trading simulator allows you to replay your trades in a simulated environment, which can help you identify areas where you could have made better decisions or improved your strategies.

Using a trading simulator also allows you to test new strategies or try out different scenarios without risking real money. This is especially helpful when I’m trying out a new trading strategy or experimenting with a new market.

When using a trading simulator, pay close attention to your decision-making process and identify areas where you could have made better decisions. For example, you may notice that you hesitated to enter a trade when the market was trending in your favor, or that you exited a trade too early and missed out on potential profits.

By replaying your trades in a trading simulator, you can gain a better understanding of your decision-making process and identify areas where you need to improve. This allows you to continually refine your strategies and become a more successful day trader.

Conclusion

In conclusion, having a weekly trading journal routine is an essential part of the consistent trading process. By reviewing your best trades, learning from your mistakes, and replaying your trades in a trading simulator, you can identify areas where you need to improve your strategies or mindset. This allows you to continually refine your trading approach and become a more successful day trader. Start using this routine, and register for your free TraderSync account here!

If you want to learn more about using TraderSync, checkout our journal tutorials here.

As a trader, it’s essential to constantly strive to improve your performance and increase your profits. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by replaying your day trades in a simulator and learning from them. A replay trading sim is a tool that allows you to replicate real-world trading conditions in a controlled environment, allowing you to gain experience and identify areas for improvement without risking your real capital. In this blog post, we’ll discuss three benefits of replaying your day trades in a simulator and learning from them. If you haven’t yet already, start your 7-day free TraderSync account here.

1. Identify Mistakes and Improve Your Trading Strategy

One of the most significant benefits of replaying your day trades in a simulator is that it allows you to identify mistakes and make improvements to your trading strategy. A simulator provides a risk-free environment where you can experiment with different strategies and techniques without the pressure of real-world trading. By replaying your day trades, you can see how your actions affected your profits and losses and identify areas where you need to make changes.

For example, if you notice that you tend to overtrade or make impulsive decisions, you can work on developing strategies to overcome these habits. Similarly, if you find that you struggle with managing risk, you can experiment with different risk management strategies in the simulator and find the one that works best for you. By identifying mistakes and making improvements to your trading strategy, you can increase your chances of success in real-world trading.

2. Recognize Patterns in Your Trading Behavior

Another benefit of replaying your day trades in a simulator is that it allows you to recognize patterns in your trading behavior. This can include things like overtrading, poor risk management, or emotional reactions to losses. By reviewing your trades in a simulated environment, you can see how these patterns affect your performance and identify ways to overcome them.

For example, suppose you notice that you tend to make impulsive decisions when the market is volatile. In that case, you can develop a strategy to avoid this behavior, such as setting stop-losses or taking a break from trading during volatile periods. Similarly, if you find that you struggle with managing risk, you can experiment with different risk management strategies in the replay trading sim and find the one that works best for you. By recognizing patterns in your trading behavior and developing strategies to overcome them, you can improve your overall performance. Checkout a great article we did on how to create playlists using our Replay Trading Sim tool here. This is a powerful feature that allows you to have focused sessions working on pattern recognition, and mastering the process of identifying and managing trades of that pattern.

3. Test Different Strategies and Indicators In The Replay Trading Sim

A third benefit of replaying your day trades in a simulator is that it allows you to test different strategies and indicators without risking your capital. The market conditions are constantly changing, and what worked well in the past may not work as well in the present. A simulator provides you with a platform to test new strategies, indicators, and technical analysis without risking your real money. This can help you to identify the strategies that are most likely to be successful and refine your approach.

For example, if you’re considering using a new indicator, you can test it in the simulator to see how it performs in different market conditions. Similarly, if you’re considering a new trading strategy, you can test it in the simulator to see how it performs over time. By testing different strategies and indicators in the simulator, you can find the one that works best for you and increase your chances of success in real-world trading.

In conclusion, replaying your day trades in a simulator can be a valuable tool for traders of all levels. It allows you to identify mistakes, recognizes patterns in your trading behavior, and test different strategies and indicators without risking your capital. By replaying your day trades and learning from them, you can improve your trading strategy, increase your chances of success, and become a better trader. Make sure to take the time to review and analyze your trades in a simulator as part of your daily routine. Take advantage of our free 7-day trial at TraderSync so you can start journaling, and using our replay trading sim today!

 

Our market replay simulator is the ultimate tool for replaying trades, learning new setups, improving exits and entries, and studying how candles and level two move. You can replay any trades from your journal and see your entries and exits plotted on the chart, or search for the ticker and date to find the stock you want to replay. To learn more about TraderSync and our replay trading simulator, click here.

One feature that separates our replay trading simulator from competitors is our custom playlist feature. This allows you to build and categorize a playlist of charts, just like you would with songs on Spotify or apple music. Create a playlist of the setups you trade, add charts where this setup appeared, and practice trading it anytime! Signup for your free 7-day trial at TraderSync today!

How to Create a Playlist On Our Trading Simulator

Option #1 – Create Playlist By Adding Individual Trades

replay trading simulator

On the home page of our market replay trading simulator you can see some pre-built playlists that traders have made (TQQQ made by @alphacharts365 on Twitter). To create your own, select create playlist and name it and add a description of how you trade it.

replay trading simulator

To add your trades that fall under this setup, go back to your journal dashboard, select the setup filter then click the setup of the playlist you are building and all of your trades under that setup will appear.

tradersync journal

 

Click into the trade, and you will see a replay trade button on the top right of your screen. This will take you to the chart and time and show your entries and exits on the screen.

tradersync journal
Once you are on the chart you want to add to your playlist, click the save button, and select the playlist you want to add it to.

replay trading simulator

Once you have added in all the trades under this setup, you now have an on-demand playlist you can replay anytime, and once you are done with one chart, it will go to the next under this playlist.

replay trading simulaotr

Option #2 – Create Playlist With Journal Setup/Mistake Tags

Alternatively, you can also mass produce simulator playlists if you login to your TraderSync account, then navigate to “configuration” and “market replay”. There you can create playlists based on the setup tag you have in your journal, whether it was a win/loss/break-even/open, and if you made any mistakes on your trades. Once selected, this playlist auto-generates into your replay simulator playlist dashboard!

Replay Your Mentor’s Trades

Watching videos and studying pictures of your mentor’s trades and setups is great, but you can take it one step further with our replay trading simulator. Ask your mentor to build a playlist of their past trades under a setup, then you can replay those trades, and see their exact entries and exits. Try to replicate them, improve them and understand what signals on the chart caused them to make those trades.

When they post their trades, you can also build your own playlist of their trades. Just search up the ticker and date, add it to your playlist, and trade it! One of the best weekend routines to stay sharp is replaying your trades and your mentors so you can compare both thought processes and where you need to go.

Replay and Master One Ticker

Do you only trade one or a few tickers? Make a playlist of those tickers and add any date range of this ticker you want to replay. For example, If you are mastering $SPY or $TSLA at the end of the trading week, add the last 5 days of those stocks, and replay them on the weekends.

This will help you understand how price actions and level two moves around certain levels of support and resistance. On the weekends, Master last week’s price action so you’re ready for the next week.

Replay Your Best trades

Create a playlist involving the best trades you have ever made. Replay them anytime you are questioning your trading plan. Study the habits and everything you did right that made these profits for you. You can learn a lot from your trades, especially winning ones where your edge is present. Replay your edge, so you know when it appears on a chart, you are ready to pounce like a sniper!

Our market replay trading simulator is the #1 tool to replay and practice trading. It gives you the feeling of real trading, without risking real capital. Build a playlist that you can learn from and suit your trading style to make the most of this tool! Signup here for your free, 7-day trial!

A trading simulator is the best way to practice trading without risking any real capital. It is also the quickest way to shorten your learning curve, practice trading strategies, and find your trading edge. You can replay any trade of yours, your mentors, or friends to learn from. If you want to practice a specific setup you are learning, you can make a custom playlist of past trades where this setup appeared. This allows you to practice trading it, go back to your journal, and review the progress you’ve made, and where you can improve. Tradersync’s trading simulator is like no other simulator out there. The features it offers over other trading simulators, and the ability to sync and journal your trades, hands down make it the top trading simulator to practice on.

We created the trading simulator to replicate actual trading. When trading within our trading terminal, it will feel like real trading software with features such as customizable charts, level 2, your orders and positions, scanners, watchlists, time and sales, and account size and balance. We recommend trading with the account size you will be day trading with. This allows you to practice exactly how you would trade real money.

In order to begin paper trading and practicing, select a date, time, and ticker from the past four years, and start paper trading in our simulator! If the setup you want to practice trading happened later in the day, you can speed up the time, or fast forward and rewind to the exact time you want to trade. You will now be replaying a trade exactly as the price action happened in the past.
Day Trading Simulator

Advantages of TraderSync’s Day Trading Simulator Vs Competitors

Create Custom Playlists

The best way to use TraderSync’s trading simulator is by creating a custom playlist of the setups and trades you want to practice and learn. Just like you would organize music on a playlist on Spotify, you can do with trades on our market replay simulator. For example, you are learning how to trade a head and shoulders short pattern. Add any trade you, or your mentor, who is someone you learn from, and add it to this playlist. You can use 4 years of trading data to replay. So go to any date and ticker where this setup appeared, and add it to your playlist. You can now practice this trading strategy anytime you want, and track your progress in the TraderSync trading journal.
TraderSync Day Trading Simulator

Replay Your Past Trades From Your Journal To Learn From

The most valuable trading lessons come from your own trades. After you are done journaling and reviewing them, replay them in our market replay trading simulator. In the simulator, you can tweak any mistakes you made, and practice finding ways to minimize your losses or maximize your gains.

Click on any trade in your TraderSync journal, and then click on Replay Trade. You will be brought to the trading simulator where you can now replay this exact trade. For example, if you lost a trade where you didn’t follow your pre-made plan, practice taking the trade following your original plan. Or if you kept adding to a losing position because you wanted to average down, and it resulted in a larger loss, practice placing a stop loss at your max loss per trade. Maybe you sold a winning trade too early and didn’t follow your plan’s target exit. Replay this in the simulator and learn from this mistake.
Replay Day Trading Simulator

Synced Directly To Your TraderSync Journal To Track Progress

Our Market Replay Trading Simulator is synced directly to your Trading Journal. This allows you to track your progress, and treat your paper trading the exact same way you would in your real trading process. In the TraderSync journal, you can open multiple trading portfolios so you can separate your paper trading from your real trading.

You can tag and track setups you are practicing paper trading, so you can view the trading data in your journal like you would in real trading. This will help you understand where your strengths and weaknesses are as a day trader. Once you start paper trading and practicing more setups, you will realize where you have more of a trading edge and where you should focus your efforts on. You can also track the mistakes you make while paper trading so you can review and solve why you are making these mistakes, and prevent them from happening in real trading.

You can also make notes, while you are paper trading on the simulator, and these notes will show up in your journal under the trades. This allows you to track what you felt, and why you made the trades you did. The ability to track your progress on a journal while using our market replay trading simulator is game-changing.

TraderSync Trading Journal

4 Years Of Past Trading Data Available

Another advantage our trading simulator has over others is it has four years of trading data to replay. Most trading simulators only have a few weeks or days to replay the trade. With us, you can replay a trade that is up to 4 years old! If you ever want to go replay that one big win or loss you or a mentor had, you can now without having to worry about not replaying it in a few weeks.

You can also still use custom charts and timeframes for any tickers during those 4 years of replay data. If you want to replay an old trade with the 1-minute, 5-minute, or whichever your favorite trading time frame is, you can! You can also customize the indicators you want to use on your charts and we have them all available.

TraderSync’s market replay trading simulator is game-changing and truly no other product like it. It is the closest thing to real trading without risking real money and has many features that help you grow and learn as a trader. Journaling and data analysis is crucial to finding your strengths and weaknesses as a trader. Having the trading simulator connected to the trading journal is a massive advantage for learning traders.

Start your 7-Day FREE trial with TraderSync today, no credit card is needed. 

The market is constantly changing. A setup that works today will not necessarily work tomorrow. This is why we need to be willing to constantly analyze new market trends for a setup to be adapted to changing conditions. A market replay trading simulator helps you practice new setups and strategies, without risking any real capital. On The TraderSync Market Replay, you can create playlists of each setup you want to practice. If you want to practice your mentor’s setups, create a playlist of their setups, and add their trades to your playlist. This is the best way to learn from your mentor, by actually replaying the trades they took, so you can see why they made the trade, how they entered, managed risk, and their exits.

If you are new to trading, Our Market Replay Simulator is perfect for you. You do not need to connect a brokerage account or risk real money. Just keep practicing and mastering 1-2 setups, so that every time you see it form on a chart, you are ready to trade it. Paper trading on a market replay can speed up your learning curve as a trader. 

Our market replay simulator takes post-trade analysis to a whole other level. Once you are done reviewing and journaling your trades, replay them in our market replay! This is the best way to work on the mistakes you made in your trades and correct them right away. Our motto that we practice daily is Record, Review, and Replay!

A replay trading simulator allows you to analyze your previous trades by replaying the ticker price action tick by tick exactly as it happened in the past. This will allow you to analyze multiple aspects of your trades such as:

Review Entry & Exit Conditions:

Entries and exits are crucial to being a good trader. Every trade you make should be following a pre-made daily plan. A market replay simulator can help you review your exits and entries, and the emotions you felt. Replaying the price action can help you make conscience of your expectations to answer key questions such as: Was this the best possible entry? Did I wait for my entry target? Do your entries and exits align with your trading plan? Did you cut your loss when the trade went against your plan? How can you improve your exit and entries next time?

Review Indicators:

It is highly recommended you add the indicators that you normally use when trading to your market replay system. This will allow you to check your indicators for your entry, exit executions and while you were holding your position. You can also practice using new ones to see how the price action acted around those indicator levels. Our charts from TradingView allow you to customize your chart exactly like you would in real trading.

Review Level 2:

The best way to learn and understand level 2 is by using a market replay to go back in time and see how the tape looks around different price levels. Watch it back, learn how it reacts and practice trading with it. This can also help you in the future so you know what signals to look for in level 2 when trading your setups. Ask yourself: How does level 2 look when my setup and entry signals present themselves? 

Review Catalyst:

Whether you had a news or price action catalyst this can be reviewed while replaying the trade. Take a look at how the technicals react when the catalyst happens. When reviewing your trades, you should be looking to answer key questions such as: What was the catalyst that helped you take on the trade? Was the catalyst really moving the trade in the direction you were hoping for?

Review Risk Reward:

Great portion of your losses will normally come from taking a trade with an emotion and not respecting risk management.. Trades with emotions can be normally detected when there is no profitable risk reward easily visible on the entry executions. While reviewing your trades, look to see how you can increase your risk:reward ratio. 

Review Targets and Stops:

Review your targets and stop losses. The best way to grow your trading account is by letting your winners run/hit your targets and by cutting losses quickly. Replay all of your losing trades in the simulator, and try to cut your losses quicker. Same with your winning trades, replay them to see if you exited at your target exit or if you sold early. Look to answer questions such as: Did you have a target and a stop defined prior entering the trade and was this acceptable as per your trading strategy?

Review Trading Rules:

The best traders have trading rules they live by. Make sure you have a list of them, and if you break them, replay them in the simulator. This will help you better understand why you broke the rule, and how you can combat breaking them in the future. It will also help you create new ones as you correct your trading mistakes in the market replay. Ask yourself: Did you respect your trading rules to take on this trade? And more importantly, did you respect your stop losses when the trade was not going your way? 

Review  Market Conditions:

In trading, you always want to be trading with the trend. Review the overall market conditions during your trades to see if you were with or against the trend. It is useful to be able to identify the different types of market conditions so you can make trading decisions, such as in which direction relative to the market you should trade or which particular strategy to use. Ask yourself: What was the overall direction and sentiment of the market? Was it in your favor or against your trade?

Test a New Setup

The best place to learn a new setup is in a market replay simulator. Test any new trading setup that you want to learn without risking real money.. Simply pick a date from the past click play and look for tickers that might present your trading setup so you can practice on. On our market replay you can create custom playlists of each setup you want to practice, and add past trades so you can replay them any time. If you want to practice one of your mentors’ setups, go to the stock they traded, select the date and fast forward to the time they made the entries and exits. This will help you learn why they took the trades, and how you can make them in the future!

Market replay simulators can speed up a trader’s learning curves by studying and replaying past trades, learning new setups, and improving their trading skills. TraderSyncs market replay trading simulator has all the features to give you a real day trading experience without risking real capital. Practice trading anytime the market is closed and master trading your setups. Replaying your trades and learning from your mistakes and success will help you further understand your trading edge and how you can improve it. Start your 7-day free trial with TraderSync today, no credit card needed. 

 

Maximum Adverse Excursion ( Price MAE )
Defines the price of the asset that would have led to maximum losses during the trade.

Maximum Favorable Excursion ( Price MFE )
Defines the price of the asset that would have led to maximizing profits during the trade.

Maximum Adverse Excursion ( Position MAE )
Defines the maximum possible losses that could have taken place during the trade.

Maximum Adverse Excursion ( Position MFE)
Defines the maximum possible profits that could have taken place during the trade.

Why are these metrics important?
These metrics are key are they can answer the following key questions while trading:

  • How much profit did I leave on the table?
  • What could have been the best possible exit price?
  • What are the maximum possible losses I could have taken during the trade?
  • What could have been the worst possible exit price?

Answering the questions above can help you better understand whether the trade you took respected your trading rules and whether your exit could have been better or not.

Examples
Let’s assume this trader took a long trade for 2000 shares on BKD @ 4.72.

Price MAE: While in the trade, the maximum price reached was 5.18. Therefore, the MAE is 5.18.
Position MAE: While in the trade, the maximum price reached was $920 ((5.18-4.72)x2000). Therefore, the MAE is $920.

Maximum Favorable Excursion -MFE

 

Price MFE: While in the trade, the maximum price reached was 4.645. Therefore, the MAE is 4.645.
Position MFE: While in the trade, the maximum price reached was -$150 ((4.645-4.72)x2000). Therefore, the MAE is -$150.

Maximum Adverse Excursion -MAE

Robinhood does not provide a simple way for users to export their history of trades into a CSV. This is why we created an easy way for you easily export trades from Robinhood into a CSV file or right into our trading journal.

  1. Created an account on tradersync.com
  2. Select Robinhood from the broker dropdown menu
  3. Enter your Robinhood username and password (Don’t worry, we will never store your credentials)
  4. Select the portfolio you want your trades to be exported to
  5. Click Import

That is it, five simple steps to export trades from Robinhood into a CSV file or into TraderSync.

How are we able to export trades from RobinHood?

We tap into Robinhood APIs which allows us to obtain all your transactions such as price, symbol, date, time, and more. Once we are able to obtain this information we simply run our algorithm to export all your trades from Robinhood into our trading journal which then can be re-exported into a CSV.

Do you store my username and password for Robinhood? 

No, we will never store your Robinhood credentials. We simply use your credentials at the moment when you input them to export the trades from Robinhood.  We do not store them, this is why every time you wish to bring your new trades over to our trading journal we will be asking you to re-enter them.

How can I export my trades from Robinhood into a CSV?

After you have properly imported your trades into TraderSync, you can then click on the “Trades” menu, you will be able to select all your trades and copy them into a CSV.

How long does it normally take to import a year’s worth of transactions?

It might take up to 10 minutes to export one year or more worth of transactions from Robinhood.

What is the benefit of Exporting the trades from Robinhood into TraderSync?

TraderSync will provide you with analytics reports that will help you find your trading edge.

If you have any questions you can always email us at support@tradersync.com

This guide aims to help you get the most out of your trading journal.

Whether you use an excel template spreadsheet, offline software or an online trading journal to record your trades you must be looking to follow these habits.

These practices were acquired from other traders that use our software and my experience as a trader for three years.

Follow these easy pointers and it might help you find your trading edge sooner.

They also apply to traders who trade Stocks, Options, Futures and Forex Currency.

Journals should follow these rules no matter the type if financial market.

Ok, let’s dive right into it.

Use a Tool You Are Comfortable With

There are a few tools out there to journal your trades. You must choose the tool that you think it will make our trade journaling smooth.
You do not want to focus on customizing the tool, instead, you want the tool to work for you.

For example, trading journal spreadsheets are a great way to get started. However, as you start logging in your trades you will find that you will need to spend more time customizing your spreadsheet.

is that really a time well spent?

I didn’t think so either. That is exactly why I suggest to stay away from a spreadsheet.

Instead, look for an online trading software that you can access from anywhere at anytime.

There are plenty out there that you can choose from including ours.

Journal Your Trades as Soon as You Place Them

One of the main points of keeping a trading journal is to reflect on trades we just placed. The journal should be a way for us to isolate us from all the noise of the market and think back to realize whether we made a good trade.

For us traders to be able to reflect on this, we must journal our executions as soon as the order gets filled. The sooner we log them the more insightful information we can provide to the trading journal, therefore the more we can get out of it.

Don’t give me wrong, I’m lazy too and it is very difficult to find the willpower to journal as you trade in real time. First off you must look at a number of data points such as the instrument price, price actions, news, social media channel and with all those factors place a trade. Then once you are in you need to pay attention to your exit, therefore you must watch the price action with an eagle eye. Yes, it sounds like there is no time in between to journal the trade you just placed.

However, you will find the time you invest in journaling your trades right after you place an execution will give you better results than journaling your trades later.

What I have found on the test I have run on multiple traders including myself is that when I log the trade as they happen I tend to obey more my own rules. When you write down your plan is almost like you are writing a contract with yourself that states your goal and exit strategy giving you more accountability for your actions, and when you have accountability you will naturally strive to follow your own rules.

We are talking about investing only 60 seconds in between executions. All you should be looking to log is your entry price, date, time, one or two sentences describing why you took the trade, setups, your goal and most importantly your stop loss or exit strategy.

You can use many ways to journal your trades but to give you an example this is my journal looks after I enter my first log as I open a trade.

As shown in the video. This only got me 60 seconds.

Trust me, give it a try and journal your trades as you place them, and you will notice how your performance improve over a month.

You could also see how the popular traders like Timothy Sykes also journal their trades this way. Even they say this little time investment help them be accountable for their actions improving their overall performance.

Avoid Importing and Syncing Your Account With Your Journal

DO NOT make the same mistake I made. There is a huge difference in benefits between recording your trades manually and to sync or import your trades directly from your broker or trading platform. When I first started to my journey as a Trader I was using Profit.ly which provides you an easy way to import your trades directly from your broker, so you won’t have to lift a finger to carry your trades over. However, I found myself never reviewing my trades.

I mean, what was the point of doing so?

Everything was already there. In my mind, I could just revise the performance analytics they give you at the end of the week. BIG mistake. This was not helpful at all, as I was not really “journaling” my trades. I was just looking for the trades I made and some reports that is it.

That is all you will be able to achieve if you attempt to skip the step of you journaling your trades by hand one by one.

If you are a scalper that places many executions throughout the day, I’m talking at least 20+ executions a day, then you have no option but to import your trades as it will take hours to record them one by one. No need to be the guy below typing your trades nonstop.

Well, if that is your case, then you should at least import your trades every day right after the market closes and right away start going through each trade and place your insights into each trade.

Review Each Trade at the End of the Day

Journaling your trades do not end when you record your trades. It starts when you first log them in. A trade journal is meant for you to go back and review what you have recorded so you can take the overall data and reflect on it.

This self-reflection should give you insights that you can use to improve your next trading day.

You should be reviewing at the end of your trading day each one of your trade.

At the very least you should evaluate the following:

  • Entry Points: The first execution you took to open your position and each of the executions you took to add to your position.
  • Exit Points: The executions you placed to close or reduce your position.
  • Reasoning: The reason why you enter the trade, the reason why you change the size of your positions and the reason why you closed your position.
  • Intraday Chart: The intraday chart of the price actions, especially if you are a technical analysis trader like me.
  • Mistakes: The mistakes you made and the reason why.
  • Setups: The setup you used to enter the trade.

It is simple, all you need to do is go back and scan through each of your trades to find hidden gems in your data such as:

  • Did I follow my rules?
  • Why did I make mistakes?
  • Was it a good entry point?
  • Could I have to hold my position longer or shorter?
  • Is this setup really working for me?

Record the Reasoning Behind Each Execution

If you are like me sometimes your emotions can take over your decision-making process while trading. You end up making trades that are based on emotions and not on your actual rules, and we know this normally end its losses.

Do not worry, I was there too and most of trader out there are in the same boat.

We all want to make money and we want to make it quick, therefore we skip basics yet simple steps that are critical for an optimal performance while trading the market.

There is not set in stone solution, but journaling trades and the reason why you took each one of them should be a good start to help you control the anxiety that drives those emotions to interfere with your decisions.

By writing down the justification of the trade it will help you to eventually be able to only take those trades that truly follow your rules as you will make yourself accountable. The idea is to put you in a spot that almost serves as a lie detector. Just remember, you must try to be as honest.

Make The Trade Journal Your Own

We are not all equal, some of us are ok interpreting hundreds of numbers in a Journal trading spreadsheet. If you are like me, you probably need more visuals that help you digest the insights behind the numbers.

Therefore, you must adapt your journal to the best way that makes you understand what is really going on when you trade. Make it your own by recording the data points that truly means something to you and that you can interpreter easier.

For example, in my trading journal, I track return % which represent that percentage I made out of the trade. But most people track return $ which is the amount of dollars they made with that trade.

Well, track what is meaningful to you and focus on those points.

Customize your excel spreadsheet template or your online trading journal to show you graphics of your data and the graphics that you truly care about.

As another sample, I trade between the price range of $1 and $7 and I want to know with a graphic, if I do particularly bad towards the high end of the price range. A graphic will help me understand this in a matter of seconds while trying to interpret number in an excel sheet will most likely take me a lot longer to understand this.

Mine Your Trading Journal

As I mentioned briefly before, to make a trading journal valuable to our self we cannot just input our trades and leave it as is.

We must go back and see the overall performance to mine the data and to learn from that. When mining our data, we should be looking for answer sub but not limited to:

  • Which day of the week is the most profitable?
  • Is there a day where I consistently produce losses?
  • What are the slow months for me?
  • What is the best price range for me?
  • Where does 80% of my profit come from?
  • What should I focus on to maximize profits?
  • Based on my trade history is now a good time to trade?
  • Is there a specific setup that outperforms the rest?
  • What mistakes can I avoid to maximize my profits?
  • Where are most of my losses coming from?
  • Do I keep my performance as trade bigger volumes?
  • Which mistakes are costing me the most and is there something specific that is making me make those mistakes?
  • Which price range do I tend to generate more profits from?
  • Which trades have been the most profitable? If there a relationship between them that potentially I can use to focus on such setup?

Anywho there are plenty of questions we should be looking to answer with our trading journal.

This is why I like to either have my journal in an excel spreadsheet or even better an online trading journal that can answer these questions quickly without any work such as TraderSync.

You answer all these questions on your own with a spreadsheet, it just comes down to how much time are you willing to spend tweaking an excel spreadsheet to provide you this information or to use a software like ours that can answer these questions with a few clicks.

You won’t believe how helpful mining your data could be. When I first started trading with Timothy Sykes I was just journaling my trades on a notebook, but it was impossible to get information out of it. I then moved to start recording my trades in an excel spreadsheet and tweak it so it can have graph and easy ways for me to find these answers. However, I found myself investing a lot of time tweaking the spreadsheet. It was just driving my attention away from trading. Then I decided to create TraderSync so moving forward I can focus on trading and let TraderSync to the heavy lifting.

Once it was built I was amazed by the valuable information I was getting out of it. For example, I did not know before cool stats that can help me shape my performance such as

“trading at noon was accounting for 40% of my losses” – I took that information to simply stop trading at noon making me 40% closer to be a profitable trader.

We traders are busy and have plenty to worry about while trading. Therefore, I recommend whichever solution you go for to mine your data, ensure that you are not investing more efforts in the software rather than trading.

Be Honest With Yourself

It sounds easy, yes, of course, we can we honest with ourselves and make notes in our journal of what truly happened when we took the trade.

Well, from my experience it is not that easy. I found myself covering the truth of my wrongdoing when making notes.

It is crazy but what helped me to avoid the lies was saying aloud what truly happened.

Why did I enter the trade? and the reasons behind each of my decision.

By saying it aloud is almost like I did not have a chance to think how to cover any bad decisions. Then I will type that in the notes.

That was just my experience and a potential solution that you can use, but we are not, all the same, it is just a matter for you to find a way, to be honest with yourself and your journal.

At the end, it is for your own good.

Share Your Trades

If you are like me, you probably have impulsive decisions where you enter a trade that did you fit into your strategy but perhaps you were afraid of missing out, so you jump on a trade quickly.

Well, I was doing this very often, I’m talking at least three times a week.

So, I decided to share my trades and thoughts prior and after I take a trade with Twitter. This way, I could use the crowds to make me hold myself accountable for those decisions I took without a real strategy behind it.

I would either take a screenshot of my notes or use a software to easily share them quickly.

I ensure to share the following when potentially acting on a trade:

  • Preying on a potential trade
  • Taking a position
  • Changing my position size
  • Closing my position

After doing this for just about a week, immediately I started seeing an improvement in my performance as I was avoiding those trades that did not fall into any of my strategies. This, as I did not want to share with Twitter a losing trade, so I was carefully picking those that I felt more comfortable with.

Jing is my favorite free software to take a screenshot of my trades.  Even better it would be if you could get to share your trades directly from your journaling so you don’t have to take any screenshots.

Bottom Line

Look,

These are common sense practice if you think about it.

However, most people disregard these techniques and therefore end up with a trading journal that it is of no value to them.

Following these simple tips can drastically help you to improve your performance and being a step closer to be a profitable trader. Take it from myself, I went from losing money in the stock market to start driving consistent profits after a few months of following these rules closely.

Let me know if you have another tip that should be added to this trading journal guide in the comments below.

Paper trading is always a great way to start your career as a trader. It will get your feet wet enough to understand the dynamics of trading.

To better optimize your paper trading, you will need to keep track of your performance by continuing to add your executions to a paper trade journal. This journal could be a simple notebook to get you started, or you could go beyond and create a simple excel sheet. It is your call, whatever you feel the most comfortable with. We recommend using our paper trade journal (of course) because it takes your mind away from “How to keep a paper trade journal”, instead you let our software do the heavy lifting and you just can focus on journaling your paper trades.

 

What to record in a paper trade journal?

It all depends on whether you are trading Stocks, Options, Futures or Forex. Each market will require slightly different data for you ot journal. being that said, here is the common information among those market that at the very least you should be recording.

  • Entry Price and DateTime
  • Exit Price and DateTime
  • Position Size
  • Reason why you took the trade

These four points of information will go a long way to help you shape in the proper direction when starting your trading career and it will also help you build a habit of journaling your paper trades. This habit will be worth gold once you step over to trade with a real account and money of your own pocket.

 

What does a paper trade journal sample look like?

In the sample below you can see this person is trading stocks but the same principle applies to options, futures, and forex. As you can see you should record the four basic points we talked above in a very simple and plain English. There is no magic here, the idea behind writing what happened is for you to take into account into future trades potential mistakes or opportunities.

How does your application TraderSync look like to record my paper trade journal?

TraderSync provides you a lot more information such as your profit and losses. All you need to do is to provide us the basic data such as entry and exit points and we will calculate the rest for you. The idea of using our application tas paper trade journal is for you to gain all the benefits from understanding your performance.

Sample Tradre Journal