Using a Forex Trading Journal

A lot of times when you've been trading for awhile and having trouble finding some success, a good way to start your turn around is trading is to keep a forex trading journal.

A forex trading journal is a way to track your trades along with the reasons for them, not to mention the results. The purpose is to find your losing and winning patterns. What were you thinking about when you placed a winning trade? How about a losing trade?

A forex trading journal does not have to be anything complicated; you can create one inMicrosoft Excel. You could even just write it down in notebook to keep it simple.

Items recommended for tracking:

• Date of Trade
• Currency Pair
• Trading Session (Asia, US, Europe)
• Reason for making the trade
• Current Mood
• Final Trade Result

After keeping a journal for a few months, you'll start to notice certain patterns emerging. Your winning trades will have them and so will your losing trades. Are you trading because you're bored? Are you trading with solid reasoning? A trading journal will tell you these things and more.

There are common forex trading mistakes that every trader makes in the early stages. The way to truly eliminate them is to figure out what triggers cause you to make them, and deal with those problems directly.

I've met many people over my time as a forex trader that are trying learn forex trading, and they are usually somewhat frustrated with the process. When it comes down to it, forex is just buy low and sell high. The problem is, it feels hard to just buy into trends and sell after the price rises. It's much more tempting to appease your trading ego and try to find the lowest point in a currency bounce and buy it.

A trading journal will obviously not solve all your problems. You have to be able to look at your trading objectively, accept where your shortfalls are, and work to fix them. That is the key to being successful in forex trading.

You might feel a little silly to keep records this way, but you'll find that you'll discover patterns that you had no idea existed. Think of it as an investment. If you want to make money trading, treat it like a business. Make a regular practice of things that can improve your bottom line. This will ensure your path to forex trading success in the long run.