Reviewing trades in an important part of the improvement process of a Forex trader. Actually, it’s so important that even now all my Forex students and traders are still reviewing their trades daily (or weekly, for the lazy ones!).
It’s very important. As a beginner trader, you might start off really well and review your trades, take notes in your Forex trading journal and do everything by the book. At some point however you might feel like you “got it” and stop writing things down – That’s when things get ugly.
With this short article, I’ll hopefully convince some people to either start or to continue writing down and reviewing their trades. I do it, my colleagues do it (some of them have more than 15 years of experience) and so should you!
Reviewing Your Trade Results in The Forex Market
Reviewing your trading has to become part of your routine.
I mentioned earlier that some of my Forex traders do it daily, some do it weekly, it doesn’t really matter as long as it gets done. It is however important that you don’t wait too long before getting to it. Don’t review your trades monthly (unless you’re trading on W1). If you do that, you’ll often just end up skipping a lot of them because you have so many to look at, and you’ll over look things or forget conditions etc.
The best thing to do at first is to simply add it to your daily routine. Let’s say you trade from 10am to 4pm – It shouldn’t be difficult for you to find an hour in the evening to go back to your trading log, open your charts and have a look at what went on. Fix yourself a definite time when you will review every day. Make yourself a cup of coffee, sit down and concentrate for a minute.
It’s also important to me to do it only with a clear mind. Therefore, I always allow myself at least a couple hours between my last trade of the day and my review time. It’s important to get up from your chair, go do something else, clear your mind and then come back to it.
How To Review Your Forex Trades Effectively?
Here are some tips on how to review your trades effectively:
- Be impartial – Now this is going to be really hard. We as human don’t like to admit mistakes, but you’ll have to try. Try to look at your trades in a fresh and impartial way. Did you follow the rules, yes or no? There is no “yes but I felt that…”, no. Did you follow your rules, yes or no? Simple question, simple answer.
- Write great notes – There’s a special place in your trading log to write notes. Try to be as precise as possible in these notes. If something bothered you while putting on the trade or trailing it, write it down. If you had doubts about your Forex strategy when you where trading and it distracted you, write it down. The note is where you’ll refer to later on when you’re reviewing. The more information you put in, the better you’ll be able to review and critique yourself.
- Go through a check-list – It’s very easy to do. Write down a check-list of your rules and go through it for each trade. Simply tick the boxes of the items on the list you followed, and see if you completed it all. Again, try to be impartial.
- Get a professional trader to have a look – I know this isn’t affordable for everyone, hence why I’m putting it last. Sometimes getting the opinion of someone who’s been trading for a long time (ideally someone who’s been trading the strategy as you, or something similar) will be highly beneficial. There are things you probably do wrong and don’t even realize it. Getting a pro’s view on that will be invaluable. It doesn’t have to be me. In fact, it’s very important that you find someone to work with who’s also doing the same thing you do.
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