My Trading Journal Makes Me Money

[Mr_Akbar]

I love when my trading journal makes me money.

Or, in this case, saves me from losing it.

There’s tons of opportunities to trade out there, but not all opportunities are created equal… ⚖️

I used to focus on trading the coins that had tons of action with wild swings in price

New exchange listings, the hype coin of the week, those kinds of things.

The potential to win big, and quickly, is definitely there. 🎯

But I found I wasn’t hitting those wins often enough.

Instead, I was hitting my stop loss more than normal.

Looking back at my journal, it was because I would get impatient and buy quickly instead of waiting for a better entry.

Then I’d get shook out right before the price jumps up. 🍃

The evidence was clear.

From there it’s just a matter of tweaking strategy to optimize performance.

What has your trading journal taught you?

[1714103111]

1714103111

[1714103111]

1714103111

[1714103111]

1714103111

[1714103111]

1714103111

[1714103111]

1714103111

[pixie85]

I don't have a trading journal but the most important thing this market has taught me is never to be sure of any prediction or TA. Bitcoin is very unpredictable and trading altcoins is usually one big lottery.

It's interesting how the patterns always show up after the move. When it happens you start to see some similarities to the other bull or bear markets but before that most of us are running like headless chickens.

[mamesso]

I used to focus on trading the coins that had tons of action with wild swings in price

New exchange listings, the hype coin of the week, those kinds of things.

I like this part, it looks fun.
it is difficult to find a market that fits this strategy, but wild movements also have a big risk.

[sandra_x]

Every professional trader does have a strategy that is constantly being "twerked" or updated to keep up with the changes. I am not familiar with using journals for crypto trade but I did dabbled into trading on newly listed coins and I had my fingers burnt a couple of times, it does have huge rewards if it goes according to plans.Will be back when we are fully bullish

[Strongkored]

Almost 1 year does not often trade only occasionally, making journals can be a good thing to learn about mistakes or the right time when entering the market or going out, but everyone has different ways of trading, need consistency to keep a record of all our trading activities.

[Cherylstar86]

So tired and sick for having records or journals on trading, this made me frustrated along side. We can't make money upon looking on historical market value, because as of now that totally pulled the price down. $10k per btc had fallen as well and now taking its range awaiting for perfect recovery.

[GreatArkansas]

Trading taught me about Risk Management and planning carefully my every trade or don't being greedy.

At first, my trading journey was really ugly and I admit it. I lost some of my bitcoins because of trading before. I realized something before because I started to do trades without knowledge, but time goes by, I started to learn something about trading, like some basic kinds of trading stuff and some technical on analyzing the charts.

Besides that, Risk Management is also one of my silver linings on trading because it taught me how I can manage my funds, how my portfolio will grow healthy. As what others said, you can't become rich in just one night.

[Pursuer]

it is a good thing that you are keeping track of what you have done and also analyzing it.
to me it seems like you were misusing stop losses and your decision making about entry and exits were not so good. and that has nothing to do with patience. it is all about wrong analysis of the market and I have had the same experience too. sometimes you see some hype in a shitcoin and think it is going to get pumped so you ignore the other signals that are right there on the charts and then make a bad decision. the same thing is about selling where you see the hype and don't sell and continue bag holding just to end up losing a lot of money.
analyzing these mistakes I have made helped me a lot in never repeating them.

[Bunsomjelican]

I love when my trading journal makes me money.

Or, in this case, saves me from losing it.

There’s tons of opportunities to trade out there, but not all opportunities are created equal… ⚖️

I used to focus on trading the coins that had tons of action with wild swings in price

New exchange listings, the hype coin of the week, those kinds of things.

The potential to win big, and quickly, is definitely there. 🎯

But I found I wasn’t hitting those wins often enough.

Instead, I was hitting my stop loss more than normal.

Looking back at my journal, it was because I would get impatient and buy quickly instead of waiting for a better entry.

Then I’d get shook out right before the price jumps up. 🍃

The evidence was clear.

From there it’s just a matter of tweaking strategy to optimize performance.

What has your trading journal taught you?

In my experience on doing trade I never use trading journal though its not bad habit for a traders.
Just for what I did most often is when more traders are active to buy in the market, I will also do the same thing especially if the
volume is getting increase. Then, if ever I get earn more than 25% I sell it at once.

[silversurfer1958]

I do not use Journal, I only use Blockfolio and follow the alarm telegraph on whale operation. I think it will help me more when the market is about to explode.
For example, when the price of BTC increased to $ 12k4, USDT continued to print $ 100 million more and used it to pump Bitcoin's price to $ 13k1.
It is quite effective in predicting BTC prices and alts. I encourage you to use my strategy.

[Racc00n]

trading journal is crucial, especially when you are just starting.
until you will develop your own strategy, better see what the hell are you doing and be able to explain it to yourself

[leowonderful]

I didn't actively start using a trading journal until a few months ago, and it really opened up my eyes to the numerous things I was doing wrong that I would otherwise have never known without thoroughly analyzing my trades and activities. Keeping a journal also helped me identify areas of potential improvement and things that I'm already good at. Progress and learning isn't linear, of course, but I've become much better at cutting out losing trades early and letting winning ones run recently and I've also become better at setting effective stoplosses as well, which I feel has improved my trading over the past few months. Sure, keeping a journal is a mild inconvenience, but the gain of keeping one makes it absolutely worth it.

[Pipdips]

Winners journal.

[South Park]

I love when my trading journal makes me money.

Or, in this case, saves me from losing it.

There’s tons of opportunities to trade out there, but not all opportunities are created equal… ⚖️

I used to focus on trading the coins that had tons of action with wild swings in price

New exchange listings, the hype coin of the week, those kinds of things.

The potential to win big, and quickly, is definitely there. 🎯

But I found I wasn’t hitting those wins often enough.

Instead, I was hitting my stop loss more than normal.

Looking back at my journal, it was because I would get impatient and buy quickly instead of waiting for a better entry.

Then I’d get shook out right before the price jumps up. 🍃

The evidence was clear.

From there it’s just a matter of tweaking strategy to optimize performance.

What has your trading journal taught you?

To begin with I congratulate you for keeping a trading journal, most people do not and that is why they never learn about their mistakes and what they can do to improve their strategies, however be careful it is very easy to over-optimize your strategy, while in paper this will make it seem as if your strategy is now a winner the truth is that the conditions of the market never repeat themselves, also if you are investing in coins with such high volatility your risk of ruin could be very high if you do not limit your position size.

[Slow death]

this is your title: " My Trading Journal Makes Me Money "

When I read this title I thought I would find in this thread some very successful story and with negotiation tips and good strategies. But all I read was just a journal of your faults. What is the purpose of this? Okay, you can tell me that people learn from other people's mistakes. this may be true. But anyway, threads like your? they do not create motivation

From there it’s just a matter of tweaking strategy to optimize performance.

you should have mentioned which strategy you used to make a profit

[Pipdips]

Winning traders all journal. All winners plan and watch what they are doing and review their trades.

[bitgolden]

I honestly don’t keep tab on my trading, I just trade as it comes, and when I win I record the winning in my brain, and when I lose I record it in my brain also, a strategy that I use at a particular time is what I don’t keep and I think this is where journal functions most.

I have never really taught of keeping journal of y trade, but seems I have heard some few people like you speak of the advantage of keeping journal, and how it has tremendously helped their subsequent trading, but I think it is the high time that I start practicing the use of journal too to keep records of m y trade, just that it can be tiring sometimes and you know that keeping journal really needs consistencies, because the day you fail to make an input on might be the date you need the most when looking back at the journal..

[maxreish]

So tired and sick for having records or journals on trading, this made me frustrated along side. We can't make money upon looking on historical market value, because as of now that totally pulled the price down. $10k per btc had fallen as well and now taking its range awaiting for perfect recovery.

We have different point of views. If OP's journal is his reflections on his past mistakes which made him a better trader now, then that is good. But for us who did not see it.as an opportunity to grow, since i am not also fond of writing, I have my own styles. I have printed the do's and dont's that I need to remember everytime I do trading. It helps me and remind me of my mistakes before. Different styles but kinda effective.

[maydna]

I don't make a trading journal because I only download my trading history and open it with software to check the trading. But having a trading journal will help us to check how we trade so far. And if we already make mistakes, we can know that, and we can fix the problem so it won't happen again in the future. Perhaps, it is difficult to do as we need to make a new activity in trading and we need to consistent to write what we did in a day in the trading. Besides that, we can use the journal to improve our skills I analyze so we can get a better chance to make a profit.

[leonix007]

Trading Journal is somewhat very useful

I usually indicates what style did I use, indicators, TF, RR, pairs

at the end of the day I gladly take this as a good data, from where I did wrong, make a study, what's most effective and what OP's says, Tweaked it

[South Park]

I honestly don’t keep tab on my trading, I just trade as it comes, and when I win I record the winning in my brain, and when I lose I record it in my brain also, a strategy that I use at a particular time is what I don’t keep and I think this is where journal functions most.

snip

The problem with relying on your memory is that we are not computers that remember every single detail about what we do, so a trading journal is a great way to keep track of why you entered in a trade, why you got out, what were you thinking and what were your goals when you made that trade, if possible you should also keep a backup copy of the charts since a visual aid can help you to understand very quickly why you got in and out of a trade.

[omonuyak]

I love when my trading journal makes me money.

Or, in this case, saves me from losing it.

There’s tons of opportunities to trade out there, but not all opportunities are created equal… ⚖️

I used to focus on trading the coins that had tons of action with wild swings in price

New exchange listings, the hype coin of the week, those kinds of things.

The potential to win big, and quickly, is definitely there. 🎯

But I found I wasn’t hitting those wins often enough.

Instead, I was hitting my stop loss more than normal.

Looking back at my journal, it was because I would get impatient and buy quickly instead of waiting for a better entry.

Then I’d get shook out right before the price jumps up. 🍃

The evidence was clear.

From there it’s just a matter of tweaking strategy to optimize performance.

What has your trading journal taught you?

I wake up this morning to review my positions in the market and I was happy to learning that there was a trade I was to close on Sunday because bitcoin was going up against usdtq that I was holding but through my trading journal I have learned that bitcoin has been volatile and it might lose against usdt very soon and that happens this morning as my position is now in good profits.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, I'm genuinely curious as to what kinds of things you write in your trading journal.  I'm all for keeping a journal in general, but I don't know what kind of an advantage a trading journal gives you.  Do you write your thoughts in it about coins you're trading, or is it more just data?

Trading Journal is somewhat very useful

I usually indicates what style did I use, indicators, TF, RR, pairs

Yeah, but can't you just see all of this information by looking at your trading history on whatever exchange you're using?

[Mr_Akbar]

OP, I'm genuinely curious as to what kinds of things you write in your trading journal.  I'm all for keeping a journal in general, but I don't know what kind of an advantage a trading journal gives you.  Do you write your thoughts in it about coins you're trading, or is it more just data?

I actually keep two journals. One for each trade, and one for each session.

For keeping track of each trade, you'll want:
Date/time, which coin, position size, average buy in, plan for profit take and stop loss, where you actually sold, and any additional details/notes on the trade itself
Example would be:
7/26/19 12:00, REN/BTC, 0.05 BTC, entry 1400, take profit at 1442, stop loss at 1386, actually sold at 1433, "sold a bit before profit target because it looked weak"

To journal each trading session, you need:
Date, describe how you felt before trading, rate emotional state from 1 to 10, starting capital, describe how you felt your session went, rate the session 1 to 10, ending capital, performance, any notes
Example would be:
7/26/19, woke up to find my dog had diarrhea all over the place, 2, 0.5 BTC, got frustrated during the session but was able to clear my head and stay the course, 7, 0.51 BTC, 2% profit, had to take an hour long breather but when I did I was more successful and less emotional to end the day in profit

This can be done with a simple excel sheet, and with that you can run analysis on your trades beyond even just reviewing them.