Trading journal in gold trading

A trading journal is a structured record of trades. At minimum it logs date, session, setup, entry, stop, target, lot size, risk in dollars and R, and the result. Better journals add a screenshot, the reason for entry, the reason for exit and a note on how the trader felt. Over time the journal becomes the only honest source of a trader’s statistics.

How it applies to gold trading

Gold rewards journaling because its behavior varies so much by session and event. A journal that tags each trade with the session and whether a high-impact release was due shows patterns that are invisible otherwise: losses clustering in the Asian range, wins concentrated in the first two hours of London, every CPI-day trade negative. Those findings turn into rules.

The journal also feeds every number in risk management. Win rate, average R, expectancy, maximum drawdown and longest losing streak all come from it, and they are what decide whether the risk per trade is appropriate.

A spreadsheet is enough: the journal guide on this site provides a column layout and the formulas for win rate, average R and expectancy so the statistics update as trades are entered.

A common mistake

Recording only the numbers and not the reasons, or stopping the journal after a bad week. The losing trades and the broken rules are the entries that teach the most.

See also: Expectancy, R multiple, Win rate, Tilt and revenge trading.

Frequently asked questions