In broad terms, a journal is a record of what an individual does within a day. It is like a diary. However, a trading journal is a special type of record which captures the trading activities of an individual within a period of time such as a day.

What is the essence of a trading journal?

Traders record their performances and the reasons behind them. This helps to develop their analytical and decision making skills. This is because they give a reason or justification for each action they carry out. In the end, these records help the trader to make self-reflection, learning from what they have done right or done wrong.

The continued analysis of what you do as a trader results in professional growth. As you continuously study your trading records, you can easily tell where you have gone wrong or right.

Thus you gain the experience to tell winning and losing trends and strategies. Thus, the more data you record, the more you learn from that. What in particular should you record?

Trade performance

A trader should include essential information about every trade he/she makes. For example, one should record the cryptocurrency, forex or commodity, the entry date, the entry price, initial stop loss, technical or fundamental aspects, exit date, exit prices, profit/loss and the state of mind of the trader. It is also important to include screenshots in your records. For example screenshots of the candlesticks when you entered or exited a trade.

Market conditions

The trader needs to describe the existing market conditions on the time of entry. Some aspects of the market conditions a trader records include type of consolidation (e.g. slow consolidation), type of buying pressure (high or low) and daily trading volumes.

Specific benefits of keeping a trading journal

We have discussed the broad reasons for having a trading journal. Now let us focus on specific benefits. How does a trader really benefit?

Here are the main benefits:

• The trader learns to develop working strategies.
• One is able to learn how to control his/her emotions.
• An individual avoids impulsive trading actions.
• It helps you to plan your trades.

How to organize your journal?

Many traders use online platforms to journalize their trading experiences. Here are a few crypto trading journal sites.

Coin Market Manager (CMM: Although it is a portfolio manager, it also doubles up as a trading journal site. It has features that allow anyone to capture the most important information relating to his/her trading experience.

Cryptojournal: This website has well developed features that enable a trader to record all his/her daily activities in a meaningful way.

Other platform where you can keep your trading journals are:

• TraderSync
• Trading Journal Spreadsheet (TJS)
• MyCryptoJournal (MCJ)

However you can also maintain a trading journal on spread sheets. The greatest complication is that, this becomes very difficult if you have many trades, with different trading sites. The paper work becomes overwhelming.

Conclusion

One reason why many trading novices make loses is their failure to keep organized records of trading activities. In the end, they repeat similar mistakes. On the other hand, many professional traders are successful because they keep detailed records of their trading activities and learn from them.