How do you typically end your trading week? Do you just close your trading platform and spend the night in a bar or on your couch watching movies? If this describes your post trading routine, there is lots of room for improvement which can help your performance immediately. The right Friday post-trading analysis can make a huge difference in your trading and not doing it will almost certainly keep you from achieving consistency.
Here is our 8 points checklist to improve your weekly trading review, thus, your performance.
1) Did you meet your weekly, non-monetary trading goals? Did you make progress?
It is important to not get hung up on short term monetary goals. Forcing weekly returns almost always leads to underperformance. Non-monetary goals typically include avoiding bad habits and following your rules. In our 12 week program we encourage traders to identify their greatest weaknesses and then work at them one at a time.
2)What setup and/or instrument performed best for you? And why is that?
What do your winners have in common? Are market conditions favoring your strategy or did you make any changes that lead to greater profits? Try to find what works best and then do more of it.
3) What cost you the most money this week? How can you turn it around?
Were your losses caused by bad trading or did you not listen to what the market told you? Identifying performance killers is a big step towards profitable trading.
4) Did you spend enough time away from your charts working on your trading (e.g. preparation, journaling, review, etc.)?
The myth of screen-time is misleading traders. You don’t become a better trader by staring at charts all day long, but only actively working on your skills and reviewing your performance. How do you spend your time? Do you leave enough room for improvement?
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5) Would you say that are you are serious enough about trading?
Trading is a serious business where effort and discipline are rewarded. The typical approach of the average trader does not reflect this. Hunting signals, changing methods and trying new indicators constantly is as far away from profitable trading as it gets.
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6) Do you follow your plan and rules consistently?
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If you are an Edgewonk user, your Tiltmeter will answer this question. We set the Tiltmeter challenge at the start of your 12 week program for a reason. The Tiltmeter is the ultimate goal to build discipline.
7) Are you adhering to sound risk management principles?
Often, traders can remain disciplined for a long period of time and then lose all their profits on just one trade. Wrong risk management and not adhering to your stop loss can easily wipe out a large portion of your account. Make sure that no single trade can have a meaningful impact.
8) Did you journal all your trades?
Journaling requires manual effort and it can seem like a tedious task to enter your trade data. However, there is no replacement for it and our users report that they see a positive influence on their trading after a few weeks already. This brings us back to question 5: are you serious about this? Do you want to create long-lasting success as a trader or do you try to find the quick fix?
Your Friday routine for better trading
Set aside 60 – 90 minutes before you start your weekend and answer those questions honestly. There is no point in sugarcoating failure and a lack of discipline – it will just keep you from making progress. Although it might sound harsh, in the end nobody but you cares about your trading success and you owe it to yourself to use the time and effort you put into trading in the most effective way.
We developed Edgewonk so that it is the ultimate tool that will hold you accountable and, at the same time, provide the most honest view on your performance. It will help you stay objective and set you up for success.