Page 425 - THE MARKET WHISPERER

THE MARKET WHISPERER 42 1

same mistake, over and over. It was time to look that mistake in the eye. It
was time to make a change.

An interesting thing happened once I started keep a diary. I found that
the range of mistakes I made was limited. I found that I consistently make
the same classic mistakes of new traders. But I found these things out only
after I started my activities diary. At the end of each day, I jotted down my
trading activities, and once a week I would sit with the diary and review
the outcomes recorded there. Most of my failures derived from a small
range of repetitive common mistakes.

From this point on, the path to success was shorter and sweeter. All I
needed to do was decide to kill off those mistakes, one by one. The biggest,
toughest battle, obviously, is psychological. But by the end of the first week
in which I declared war on my mistakes, armed with my trusty diary, I was
amazed by the results. By the end of the second week, I was convinced that
this was the best method, and the war got easier. All I needed to do was
keep a diary. So simple, and so amazing.

What to Record in your Activities Diary
• Date, hour and minute of your trade. This lets you study the stock’s

chart later.
• Stock ticker symbol
• Quantity of shares you bought
• Trade direction (long, short)
• Planned entry price
• Actual entry price
• Reason for entry (e.g. technical formation, stock in the news)
• Price of first target; actual first target
• Price of final target; actual target
• Stop loss point
• Hour and minute of exit
• Actual exit price
• Reason for exit (e.g. price reached target, market changed direction)
• Monetary outcome (profit/loss, how much)
• Notes: mistakes, changed market direction, etc.

I know of traders who rely on a broker’s activities printout. Don’t rely on
that alone. A broker’s printout will never be enough. You need to manage
your own lists in a handwritten booklet or Excel-type format, whichever
manner you find easiest. But you must record every single trade you