“If you're not journaling your trades,
you’re probably just gambling.”
Part of any successful trader’s day should be planning and documenting their trades. I was taught and am convinced that as a Forex trader, good documentation helps you improve as a trader.
“I have a paradoxical advice. The single most important factor in your success or failure is the quality of notes that you keep. It’s extremely important to keep a diary of trades where you bought, why you bought, where you exited, why you exited, keeping a good diary is the single most important factor in learning to become a serious trader.” Dr. Alexander Elder, interview with InfoMoney, 07/30/2008, author of the best selling book “Trading For A Living”.
While your broker can provide you with some data, The4xJournal is a database that allows you to easily plan, document, and analyze detailed information about your trades.
“One of the most common ways to monitor oneself is through the use of trading journals.” “Anytime you systematically review your performance over time—and the factors associated with successful and unsuccessful performance—you’re engaging in self-monitoring.” “My experience is that the best predictor of failure in the trading profession is the inability to sustain self-monitoring.” page 100, "The Daily Trading Coach, 101 Lesson for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist” Brett N. Steenbarger, PH.D. and is also the author of Traderfeed.blogspot.com.
I know that having detailed information about your trades can help you discover what you are doing right and wrong when trading the Forex. With my program, I can go back the 2 1/2 plus years I have been trading, and create detailed report summaries of my trades on a month by month basis. I can also review the chart screenshots of those trades. Because it is a database, I can look for themes and how I am performing compared to current market conditions.
I created the program to help me with my Forex trading and I am offering it to you for a reasonable price. Here are some of the features:
- Note entry for each currency pair you trade including fields for planning, key number/price and business announcements or monetary speeches.
- The ability to insert your chart screenshots* with notes about that specific trade.
- Keep track of pips gained or lost, time and date, time in trade, and trading strategy used.
- Insert observed or back tested trade screenshots* and notes.
- Now with Fusion Charts Free for Filemaker so you can visually see your trading progress.** (Flash required)
- The ability to save/send your chart pages as PDFs*** to a mentor/teacher or trading partner. (PDF creation software is required. I have used both PDF Creator and PrimoPDF - the free versions.)
- Save/send your data as an Excel file or export as a text file.
- Store strategies or help notes to refer to later.
- Compatible with Windows XP with SP3, Vista, and Windows 7.
* On Widows XP, I use the free version of ScreenHunter for my screen shots.
*On Windows 7, I use the included Snipping Tool program.
**FusionCharts Free for FileMaker
***PDFCreator or PrimoPDF required.