The idea of plotting the % of occurrence of a certain error or mental status is quite interesting, never though about that. Does it plot the % of trades with that certain flaw over the whole list of trades since inception, among the N x trades, or does it plot the % of days when that flaw appeared (even if only once among several trades in the same day)? I guess all of them would work, but still intrigued
Hi Roman. Thanks for commenting and sharing your question. The use of PivotTables in Excel allows you to easily do both which is how I have it set up. I want to see the occurrence of the behavior on a per setup basis and also on a daily basis regardless of setup. This is easily accomplished by adding “setup” as a filter in the PivotTables field. If you would like more insight into this feel free to shoot me an email (I use gmail and my username is dmactrades).
Great post as usual. Been playing with various version of mental journaling over the years. This version help really to isolate the type of mistake in real time, and probably over time one can catch himself earlier before the behavior digs a deeper in the pocket. Again from personal experience - most of my trading mistakes came from not knowing my strategy deep enough in various market cycles. So ofcourse studying Douglasses, Tharps, Arris, Tandlers etc work which one definelty should, one can be spending time adressing "psychological" issues, while it would be much more beneficial to do thousands of hours of deep dives in best practices of the strategy and than dive into ones trading journal and see the gap that needs to be bridged - often most of those mistakes will start to disappear once one becomes master of his trading method. Only than I would find value in working on forms of self-sabotage, visualization methods, mental priming, self-hypnosis, magic mushrooms or whatever scratches your itch :)... Also it is crucial to develope a self care routine to nurture the mind and the body, have good relationshipe, time in nature etc - trading will obviously benefit from you being on top of things that matter in life
How did these other versions of mental journaling differ to this one? Did they take a quantifiable/hard data approach?
I've definitely found that although mindset undeniably plays a role in trading, most traders are too quick to attribute their problems to that alone - as in, some 'inherent' psychology issue. When actually, they probably just haven't done enough studying, or not enough of the right kind. At the very least, this would *improve* those issues.
And yes, I agree that focusing on the basics - looking after yourself physically - often seems overlooked. In my own case, this is the key to being able to do all the things I do without burning out! That, and just enjoying what I do :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts in so much depth. I hope you also enjoyed part 2!
I would say most of them were quantifiable - just the data quality and usefulness would depend on ones experience level. If you trade long enough eventually I would say the process can be very simple - you are already aware of you trading daemons intimately, you know what needs to be done for you to operate in best state, and also can recognize and address issues very quickly. But yeah, there needs to be a daily process that will monitor the weakest link of any trading strategy - trader. 100% one has to recognize the fine line between trying to be the best version of themselves and burning out - comes with experience too - especially if you crossed that line before :)
Anyways, really appreciate the work you are sharing
Fantastic post! Using it as my template for weekend study and evolution.. Thank you both. One question, what does "BOT" stand for??? I can't figure it out and neither can ChatGPT haha ;)
I've run your question past Dave, and he says this:
"BOT stands for 'robot', which denotes trades executed entirely by an automated trading system. I frequently run the BOT in parallel to my discretionary trading of my primary edge to A) get actionable feedback in the form of data around my own behaviours, and B) ultimately determine if I'm better served financially by focusing solely on one approach (automated vs discretionary). In case you're curious, thus far, the best approach is a hybrid one, where I'm assisted by the BOT, rather than using either approach on its own."
Thanks Kay and Dave. Whilst I know it is important to track and do these things, I struggle with the how. I don't have an issue doing my own homework when it comes to studying stocks, price action, charts, methodologies, patterns, supply/demand etc. In fact, it seems unfortunate that I have to learn these things myself, I cannot learn them from other people. As for the "soft skills" such as the journaling and psychology, I feel I'm almost entirely reliant on getting a helping hand from others how to approach this owing to my personality type (I'm knowledgeable but not particularly empathetic).
I don't really think of number crunching in this fashion as a 'soft skill'. You're inputting hard numbers about either the trade you took or the stock itself (e.g. market cap, ADR, etc.). You can then do a black-and-white analysis of those numbers.
I appreciate this isn't 100% scientific - a lot of it IS art, because market environment and state of mind do affect how well you can trade any given setup, etc. But that doesn't automatically make journaling a soft skill, to my mind.
Don't know if that's helpful at all? Or if I'm completely on the wrong track here?
The idea of plotting the % of occurrence of a certain error or mental status is quite interesting, never though about that. Does it plot the % of trades with that certain flaw over the whole list of trades since inception, among the N x trades, or does it plot the % of days when that flaw appeared (even if only once among several trades in the same day)? I guess all of them would work, but still intrigued
Hi Roman. Thanks for commenting and sharing your question. The use of PivotTables in Excel allows you to easily do both which is how I have it set up. I want to see the occurrence of the behavior on a per setup basis and also on a daily basis regardless of setup. This is easily accomplished by adding “setup” as a filter in the PivotTables field. If you would like more insight into this feel free to shoot me an email (I use gmail and my username is dmactrades).
Great post as usual. Been playing with various version of mental journaling over the years. This version help really to isolate the type of mistake in real time, and probably over time one can catch himself earlier before the behavior digs a deeper in the pocket. Again from personal experience - most of my trading mistakes came from not knowing my strategy deep enough in various market cycles. So ofcourse studying Douglasses, Tharps, Arris, Tandlers etc work which one definelty should, one can be spending time adressing "psychological" issues, while it would be much more beneficial to do thousands of hours of deep dives in best practices of the strategy and than dive into ones trading journal and see the gap that needs to be bridged - often most of those mistakes will start to disappear once one becomes master of his trading method. Only than I would find value in working on forms of self-sabotage, visualization methods, mental priming, self-hypnosis, magic mushrooms or whatever scratches your itch :)... Also it is crucial to develope a self care routine to nurture the mind and the body, have good relationshipe, time in nature etc - trading will obviously benefit from you being on top of things that matter in life
Thank you!
How did these other versions of mental journaling differ to this one? Did they take a quantifiable/hard data approach?
I've definitely found that although mindset undeniably plays a role in trading, most traders are too quick to attribute their problems to that alone - as in, some 'inherent' psychology issue. When actually, they probably just haven't done enough studying, or not enough of the right kind. At the very least, this would *improve* those issues.
And yes, I agree that focusing on the basics - looking after yourself physically - often seems overlooked. In my own case, this is the key to being able to do all the things I do without burning out! That, and just enjoying what I do :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts in so much depth. I hope you also enjoyed part 2!
I would say most of them were quantifiable - just the data quality and usefulness would depend on ones experience level. If you trade long enough eventually I would say the process can be very simple - you are already aware of you trading daemons intimately, you know what needs to be done for you to operate in best state, and also can recognize and address issues very quickly. But yeah, there needs to be a daily process that will monitor the weakest link of any trading strategy - trader. 100% one has to recognize the fine line between trying to be the best version of themselves and burning out - comes with experience too - especially if you crossed that line before :)
Anyways, really appreciate the work you are sharing
Fantastic post! Using it as my template for weekend study and evolution.. Thank you both. One question, what does "BOT" stand for??? I can't figure it out and neither can ChatGPT haha ;)
Hi Michael, that's great to hear! Thank you :)
I've run your question past Dave, and he says this:
"BOT stands for 'robot', which denotes trades executed entirely by an automated trading system. I frequently run the BOT in parallel to my discretionary trading of my primary edge to A) get actionable feedback in the form of data around my own behaviours, and B) ultimately determine if I'm better served financially by focusing solely on one approach (automated vs discretionary). In case you're curious, thus far, the best approach is a hybrid one, where I'm assisted by the BOT, rather than using either approach on its own."
Hope that helps!
thank you! yes that helps a lot.. "BOT" = bot haha, sometimes the simplest explanation is the best.. appreciate the follow up
Thanks Kay and Dave. Whilst I know it is important to track and do these things, I struggle with the how. I don't have an issue doing my own homework when it comes to studying stocks, price action, charts, methodologies, patterns, supply/demand etc. In fact, it seems unfortunate that I have to learn these things myself, I cannot learn them from other people. As for the "soft skills" such as the journaling and psychology, I feel I'm almost entirely reliant on getting a helping hand from others how to approach this owing to my personality type (I'm knowledgeable but not particularly empathetic).
Thanks again
Hey, thanks for commenting!
I'm not sure journaling is 100% a soft skill. I think that depends on how you approach it.
Journaling CAN be about how you feel, whether you log that data via multiple-choice, drop-down menus, or in a 'free writing' way.
But for my own trading journal, I predominantly think of it as recording and analysing hard, quantifiable data. You've probably already seen my posts on this, e.g. https://tradingresourcehub.substack.com/p/how-to-solve-trading-problems-constantly-improve
I don't really think of number crunching in this fashion as a 'soft skill'. You're inputting hard numbers about either the trade you took or the stock itself (e.g. market cap, ADR, etc.). You can then do a black-and-white analysis of those numbers.
I appreciate this isn't 100% scientific - a lot of it IS art, because market environment and state of mind do affect how well you can trade any given setup, etc. But that doesn't automatically make journaling a soft skill, to my mind.
Don't know if that's helpful at all? Or if I'm completely on the wrong track here?