There are hundreds and thousands of trading books available. Each book promotes its approach to trading and how to identify the best trading opportunities. All traders agree that a Trading Journal is essential to becoming a successful trader.
Ask yourself now: Can you recall your last ten or 20 trades? What went wrong, and what should you have done? What did you do well? And what should you be doing more of? What mistakes are you repeating, and when? How much do they cost you? I could go on and on, but you probably get the idea.
No one can remember all of their past trades off the top of their heads. How can you become a more successful trader without knowing where and how to improve?
Trading is like running a small business. No business can survive without the owner knowing the numbers. You cannot run a business successfully if you don’t see what you earn, your expenses, your profit, your best-selling products, or how much you owe in taxes. We can all agree that. It’s the same in trading.
Why do traders lose money?
Over 95% of traders fail. Few traders are successful. Why?
Traders who do not keep a trading diary and cannot review their previous actions are doomed both to make the same mistakes over and over again and to draw the wrong conclusions as to why they aren’t succeeding.
When traders are focused on the wrong things, they will end up system-hopping (changing their trading systems constantly and searching for one perfect plan to make money).
Many traders believe they are at fault for their trading timing and need to improve it.
We have examined hundreds of trading journals, and the reality is very different. The reason traders are not profitable isn’t because they have an inefficient method of selecting trades, but rather a number of other factors:
- Close winning trades too early
- Let losses out of control
- Micro-managing Trades
- Trading without discipline
- Get Emotional
- Inconsistent risk management
What a good trading journal can do for you
Trading journals are a very boring and ineffective way to track your trading. They also lack the necessary tools. Excel spreadsheets, especially those created by the users themselves, are often discarded as useless data dumps.
Here are three important things to consider when creating a trading journal.
- A trading journal makes you accountable and helps you become more aware of what you are doing. Trading can sometimes be a lonely occupation. Once you begin keeping a trading diary, you’ll see that it acts as a mentor and accountability partner.
- Trading journals are not one size fits all. Each trader is unique, has different needs, and thinks differently. A good trading journal is customizable.
- Your trading journal’s feedback must be actionable. It may seem like a great idea to write down your thoughts or record how much you have won or lost on a random Excel sheet, but this will lead nowhere. It is only worthwhile to keep a trading journal if you can use it to tell you what changes to make and how.
Until now, professional trading analytics software was only available to large prop trading firms and bank traders. Edgewonk allows every trader to use a professional and customized trading journal for their trading.
Why EDGEWONK?
A trader shouldn’t waste time on spreadsheets that don’t provide any real help. You want to become a trader in the end. Business people don’t write their accounting software themselves; they focus on the real work. Start thinking like a pro and set clear goals and priorities.
We’re not developers, but we hired them to make our trading journals a more user-friendly experience. We wanted to fix the problems with trading journals once and for all and let other traders stop worrying about that area of trading.
Fully customizable and personalized trading journal
Edgewonk is fully customizable for your trading style. You can create your journal based on your trading style, your setups, your trading strategy, and trade management.
Edgewonk offers even more slots to customize comments/tags. Edgewonk can be your personal trading mentor.
Edgewonk allows you to plan trades, review your transactions weekly, and even record missed transactions. This will enable you to work on every aspect of your trading.
Emotional Analytics – Psychology Edge
Each trader is aware that emotions are a major factor in trading. They also influence trading decisions. Traders used to write down manually which emotions they thought affected them. Edgewonk, the only trading journal to quantify how emotions affect your trading performance, is unique. The Tilt Meter also provides an early warning signal when you make poor trading decisions repeatedly. You can now manage your emotions and the psychological aspects involved in trading professionally and without guesswork.
Order Optimizer
Edgewonk can also help you optimize the way you trade and your orders. Setting stop-loss orders too far apart can reduce your risk-reward and, therefore, the performance of your strategy. Setting take profit orders too close to the target will reduce your win rate, as the price may not reach the take profit order and instead turn ahead of it.
Edgewonk will take care of this and provide specific tips based on the parameters you use to trade in order to maximize your trading performance.
What should you do after entering a business?
Most traders focus on the entry and don’t know what to do once they are in a position. Edgewonk understands this problem, and its Trade Management analytics examine your trading behaviors. Edgewonk’s transparent analytics eliminate the guesswork and micro-management that plague traders.