What you are measured against
A plan is a setup written down before you are in it: what has to be true to take it, and how you said you would run it. A trade can be linked to one, and then the journal answers every rule it can for itself — so "did I follow my rules" stops being a question you get to answer in the mood the result put you in.
Is it the strategy or the execution? →
Your plans 2
Rules about you, not about a trade
Your limits as a trader and how you run any trade, such as never moving a stop further away or never adding to a loser. Kept once and checked on every trade, whichever plan it used, or none. These are the ones your standing rules state in words — this is the half of them the journal can actually measure.
- No more than 4 trades in a day measured
- No new trade within 30 minutes of closing a loser measured
- Never add to a losing trade measured
Added, moved and removed as you go — there is nothing to save on this list.
Add a rule
Facts only — where the stop was, when a piece went on, what a bar actually traded at. Nothing here is a reading of the market, because a rule whose answer is an opinion is yours to answer.
- Never add to a losing trade already on the list
- No more than … trades in a day already on the list
- No new trade within … minutes of closing a loser already on the list
-
Such as 07:00-16:00, in your own time zone. A range that ends before it starts crosses midnight.