Why keep a trading record?

Keeping a trading record will be extremely important to you. Yet many traders do not keep accurate trading records. They believe it can’t really help them. If they are making money in the stock market who cares what their past trades are right? Wrong.

As a trader your past trades help you learn. The majority of times you can be making more off of your trading just by examining your old trades. For example maybe you look at your past trades and find something interesting. Although you are making money you are getting out too soon. After you get out of a trade it normally continues to go up. Identifying this style of trading will help you loosen up your stop and stop getting out so early, remember to let your winners ride. Perhaps you will go from making an average of 10% per trade to an average of 15% per trade. You would never have figured that out if you had not kept record of your trades.

Another reason you might want to keep a trading record is to determine which system is working best for you. If you are trading with a couple different systems this is important for you. Maybe the reason you keep breaking even is that while one of your systems is making money the other is losing money. You might want to adjust your trading system or change your trading style to reflect your maximize your winning systems.

Another important reason you need a trading record is to see your trading systems weakness. Maybe, you make a lot of money when the markets are bullish and lose a lot of money when they are bearish. In this case you will be able to remember this next time the markets go from bullish to bearish and prepare for it. I’m sure you can think of some good reasons why keeping a trading record can help you. The benefits can be enormous.

Always remember to develop your own trading system. Never risk too much on any 1 trade.

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