I’m now working on my trading skills on a live training account (i.e. a smaller live account). Until I get some consistency in my trading, I shouldn’t be trading anything larger. A very good practice for all disciplined traders is to keep a trading journal. But I'd not been able to be very consistent with logging down my trades. I mean, I’d intended to track down R-Multiples as prescribed by Van Tharp, but really…. I hadn’t spend that time to do that.
So if you are like me and have the same struggle. Here is a (self-proclaimed) brilliant approach – Simply use your brokers Transaction Statement Report, because all your trades will be automatically tracked in the system! Naturally, the statements would defer from broker to broker, but I would suppose most would be largely similar.
Here’s how it works.
I’m using GFT, and my account is currently net-based. That’s a hassle because unlike position-based accounts, the positions are closed and re-opened daily. So the entry prices change, and unrealised P&L also gets logged daily and is reflected in the statement (see below)
So one good way is to use your trusty Microsoft Excel!
I copied my statements into an Excel Sheet, and wrote a macro to calculate the number of trades, and the overall PnL for each trade. I definitely need a macro for that because I trade multiple lots. I trade 3 lots upfront, and then TP 2 lots, and when there’s opportunity may re-enter the trade. So if you do any form of scaling in and out, you will need a macro to help calculate your trades.
For me, one trade is considered completed only when it is completed closed off, and my macro helps me to calculate the overall P&L for each trade until that condition is met.
So for the above example (Trade 37), my macro will help me track
- Sell EURUSD 1,000
- Sell EURUSD 2,000
- BUY EURUSD 2,000 – Booked $2.53
- SELL EURUSD 1,000
- BUY EURUSD 1,000 – Booked $1.85
- BUY EURUSD 1,000 – Booked –$1.32
It records
- Trade 37, Overall P&L – $3.06, “Short” Trade (i.e. taken a short position)
So with all that information, I use excel formulas (SUMIFS, COUNTIFS…etc) and get this:
It tells me that my average trades per month is fairly consistent around 9-11 trades monthly. I do rather well with GBP/USD, GBP/JPY, AUD/USD, and perhaps the EUR pairs. and I should really avoid the USD/JPY pairs because somehow…. they don’t work out for me.
Well, I’m not saying that this should replace your trade journal (which could include a whole host of other information if you have the discipline to note them down), but this approach should give a pretty good idea of your trading pattern and inclination. There’s lots more you can do, look at number of long vs short positions, average length of time for each trade, or even cross-tab the duration of the trades against its profitability to tell you if you should do shorter-term or longer-term trades with your method.
Hope that give you something interesting to think about! Good luck with your trading!
