TRADERS DIARY: WHY IT'S NEEDED AND HOW TO MAINTAIN IT
The trader's diary is a tool that helps improve trading outcomes. In this article, we will explain how to maintain a diary to make it as effective as possible.
Attention! This article is for informational purposes only and does not contain recommendations or calls to action.
The review has been prepared by the Trader’s Diary team. You can get Trader’s Diary by leaving your e-mail in the form below.
The review has been prepared by the Trader’s Diary team. You can get Trader’s Diary by leaving your e-mail in the form below.
What is a Traders Diary
Diary of a trader is an essential tool for successful work in financial markets. It serves as a chronicle of your investment actions, helping not only to track the results of trades but also to study your mistakes and successes.
Tracking trade outcomes and compiling statistics are crucial for successful trading. Without this analysis, you won't know what is working in your strategy and what needs to be changed.
Records of trades assist in controlling emotional states during trading. You'll see the complete picture of your interaction with the market, enabling you to learn from past experiences and avoid repeating mistakes.
The essence of keeping a diary lies not only in creating an archive of your trading operations but also in the ability to conduct a deep analysis of the steps taken. By reviewing and analyzing trades, you can identify patterns, determine successful strategies, and avoid impulsive decisions based on past errors.
If you are just planning to start using a diary for analysis, we suggest using our free Traders Diary.
To start using the Diary, you need to register via the link. You can use one of the available "Quick Authorization" options or register a new account using your email address.
After logging in, it's necessary to connect the exchange API keys to the Diary.
We've covered how to connect API keys in the following articles:
— How to connect Traders Diary to cryptocurrency exchanges
We've covered how to connect API keys in the following articles:
— How to connect Traders Diary to cryptocurrency exchanges
Why keeping a diary is important
To succeed in the financial market, we need a strategy that is not only profit-oriented but also includes a plan in case of losses. Keeping a Diary can be such a strategy. A diary will help track losing trades, conduct analysis, and draw lessons, enabling one to understand the reasons and avoid them in the future.
Many consider maintaining such diaries unnecessary trouble. After all, who needs that trading plan and risk management when you can enjoy the process by just clicking two buttons - "Buy" or "Sell," right? However, in the financial market, success is achieved only by those who possess clarity of thought, composure, and professionalism. Such a professional finds the diary to be a faithful assistant.
Over time, the diary becomes not just a tool but also a learning aid, allowing constant improvement of skills and enhancing trading results.
Detailed description of trades
Systematically supplementing information about your trades is crucial. Assign each trade a "Reason", carefully describing the reasons for entry or the reasons for failure. Screenshots or even short videos related to the trade can serve as valuable material for subsequent analysis.
To add a screenshot or video to a trade, click on the "Photo" or "Video" icon on the "Diary" tab. After you have added a screenshot or video to the trade, you can enable the display of trades "with screenshots only" or "with videos only".
If you have a trade that you don't want to lose, add it to your favorites. Later, you can enable the "only favorites" filter and continue analyzing the trade. To add a trade to your "favorites", simply click on the "favorites" icon (next to the trade time).
All this information carries an evidential base. In the case of a successful deal, note that it was a successful entry according to your plan. In case of failure, analyze the mistakes and record them.
For many, keeping a diary boils down to a couple of superficial phrases, but such an approach is not beneficial. Comments like 'Was confident in success' do not reflect the real situation. Such entries resemble mundane descriptions, don't they? There's no need to keep a diary just out of a sense of obligation imposed by someone else. It's necessary to clearly understand why you are doing it and how it will help you.
If you execute 10 or fewer deals per day, try to describe the details of each deal in more detail. Describe what attracted you to the asset, what you looked at before entering the deal, what emotions you experienced during the deal, and why you exited it.
Detailed descriptions of transactions along with screenshots will be useful when analyzing completed deals. Memory can be unreliable, and without the details of the transaction, mistakes are often repeated. The diary becomes a valuable tool for preventing such situations, allowing you to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Trade analysis
Diary is a summary of your trading activity. During your free time away from trading, immerse yourself in analyzing the past days. While reviewing your trades, try to answer these questions:
- What did I overlook when entering/exiting a trade?
- How could I have improved the outcome?
- Did I adhere to the trading plan and risks?
- What did I overlook when entering/exiting a trade?
- How could I have improved the outcome?
- Did I adhere to the trading plan and risks?
By asking yourself these and similar questions, you'll learn to control your emotions and make more informed decisions in the market. Over time, you'll prepare yourself for most scenarios and know how to act in case of success or failure.
Tips for keeping a diary
Success in trading requires a clear and logically substantiated reason for entry. For example, it could be the crossing of moving averages. Gradually, you will begin to add conditions for entry or exit in a trade, creating a system that will evolve smoothly and gradually. Technical analysis, as is known, is not an exact science; it is a struggle with probability theory and mathematical expectation. Therefore, there are no hundred percent rules for opening trades, but there are zones where the probability of successful trading increases.
When keeping a diary, avoid phrases like "not to rush" or "I hurried". They are too general and do not provide specific conclusions. Try to be specific. What specific steps are required right now to improve your trading skills?
Remember that when keeping a diary, it is important to be honest with yourself. Otherwise, the diary will turn into a formal report, and your trading will lose meaning.
Use the built-in functions of the diary to analyze your trades. Analyze the history of your trades, identify patterns, and draw conclusions. Study negative trades, try to identify their reasons. Very often, by reviewing your trades after a few days, you will notice that you took actions that did not align with your strategies and plans.
Conclusion
Starting work with a diary puts you on the path of professional trading. It's a necessary and sometimes routine part of the job, but this is precisely how you can improve your trading. There's no point in keeping a diary just for the sake of it; you need to have a clear understanding of why you're doing it. Note down everything that comes to your mind in the comments, take screenshots of charts, add videos. After a few months of actively maintaining a diary, you'll see the results of your work.
Remember: Trading should begin and end with a diary.
Don't forget to stay updated on project news through the official diary Telegram-channel. Subscribe and stay informed about important events and changes in the diary!
Want to enhance the Diary with a particular tool? Please write to support, and we will take your suggestion into account!
Remember: Trading should begin and end with a diary.
Don't forget to stay updated on project news through the official diary Telegram-channel. Subscribe and stay informed about important events and changes in the diary!
Want to enhance the Diary with a particular tool? Please write to support, and we will take your suggestion into account!