Journaling and review

A trading journal is where improvement actually happens. Without one, you remember your best trades and your worst losses, and very little in between. With one, you can see exactly which setups, times and habits make or cost you money.

What to record on every trade

• The facts: date, time, market, size, entry, stop, target, exit, result in R and in money.
• The setup: which of your plan's setups it was, and the context (bias, session, news).
• Screenshots: before entry and after exit, on the timeframes you used.
• Plan-following: did you follow every rule? If not, which one did you break?
• Emotions: how you felt before, during and after.

The weekly review

1. Total R for the week, and how much came from rule-following trades vs rule-breaking ones.
2. Win rate and average R by setup, session and day of the week.
3. Your best and worst trade: what made each one?
4. Any rule you broke more than once, and what triggered it.
5. One thing to do more of, and one thing to stop, next week.

Journaling in TraderCap

The TraderCap journal imports trades from your platform, lets you tag the setup, your mood and any mistakes on each one, and breaks your results down by hour, day, instrument, setup and mistake, with a weekly review on top. The weekly review takes minutes instead of an evening with a spreadsheet.