1. Holding time
Do you tend to hold trades for more than a day? Or do you only hold your trades open for hours at a time? Knowing how long on average you hold your trades will tell you what trading techniques and styles you’re most comfortable with, and it will help you determine whether you’re a short-term trader or a long-term trader.
2. Holding time of winners vs. holding time of losers
Now let’s go one level deeper and compare holding time of winners versus holding time of losers. Doing so will tell us whether or not we’re cutting trades too early or holding trades for too long. As much as possible, we’d like to avoid holding on to losers and low-yielding trades as they tie up precious capital!
3. Winners and Losers broken down by session
Another time-based metric that you can take note off is WHEN you actually trade.
4. Winners/Losers broken down by market conditions
This metric will help determine whether you are recognizing the shifting market conditions and taking advantage of it. You will see whether you’ve been able to take advantage of the recent trend by hoping in on retracements or if you’ve been stubborn, getting burned trying to pick tops and bottoms.
5. Winners/ Losers broken down by position size
Unlike the sports cliché, when it starts getting serious in forex trading, SIZE DOES MATTER. Keeping track of how big your positions are could provide valuable insight as to how you react when positions sizes change. It could reveal whether or not you are taking advantage of strong trends by increasing your size, or doing a poor job of recognizing choppy markets and not scaling down.
Most importantly, you have to always remember to update your journal CONSISTENTLY and HONESTLY. Keeping a trade journal is a tedious task but it must be done because it is the only path towards improvement. Remember, the difference between an ordinary trader and an extraordinary one is that little EXTRA effort, done day-in and day-out!
