The CFD market is a very challenging market to get into as you are, for the most part. Monitoring price movements and projecting the potential direction of an asset’s rise or fall. Despite that, it has been one of the most popular choices for traders. A lot would get into trading based on the number of gains one can make thanks to leverages. A lot of these successful traders for CFD had focused their careers on it. We can safely assume that in those years of trading. They have experienced a number of losses and gains thanks to the volatility of the market AND their sound decision making backed by the unrelenting knowledge they have acquired over the years.
One of the most common reasons for these traders to have lost their money was during their earlier years of trading given that they have not settled a proper system or plan for their day to day trades. One of the few things some novice traders would come to overlook is keeping records. Which is in the form of a Trading Journal. That enables them to take note on a day to day basis that they can refer to in the future. This is one way for traders to get into trading and having a system that enables them to reduce the risks for better profits.
A Trading Journal?
Yes, a trading journal. It is a way for a trader to keep a record of their day to day trading activities. It is very important to know that it is something. You should have as an investor mainly so that you are able to keep a record of whether or not you are following the strategy for trading that you have designed. Given that the market would always have risks involved. A trader will be able to look at patterns from not only the charts given by your broker. But also your reaction towards certain situations in the market and what you have chosen as your plan of action during that trading day. This is a record that gives. Your insight on how you have come up with that solution in CFD. Where you are mentally in terms of the trades as these are certain aspects. That has influenced your action during that moment.
Spreadsheet as a Trading Journal
Thanks to spreadsheets, you may use them as your trading journal. You may have cells of the worksheet that can give different information that you may want to quantify or take note of in the future. An example that you can use in this manner is the dates when you took the trades, the sizes. Where you entered and exit, and what has come out in the process of the trade. Despite the process coming off as a bit annoying at first. You will eventually see the value in this as you go along and analyze. When dealing with a somewhat familiar situation you have probably come across a few months ago. Sometimes, without any record. We will not be able to remember the details from the previous encounter and it would be best to have notes on hand that may give us an idea. Where you based your decision of trading off from.
Trading Report from MT4
We admit that most are not into using spreadsheets as this becomes a bit of work for them. You may, as an option, extract the MT4 Trading report from your trading platform in place of this. A lot of traders know that MT4 is a widely recognized trading that is mostly used by different traders all over the world. You may do the following to extract the report:
- First, you can open a trading terminal and, using your keyboard, press CTRL+T to open the terminal. The trading terminal will appear below the trading chart. You can click on the history tab to look into your previous transactions.
- By right-clicking on your history tab and selecting to which time frame you are interested in checking for to see the activity. You can either select the last three months. All your trading history, or any period you would like to narrow down.
- Once you select the coverage period that you need, you may click the “save as detailed report”. And the system will produce an HTML file for you that you can use with any web browser. it will automatically create an HTML file that you can open with a web browser.
- Once you have made your MT4 trading report. You will be able to check the different details from your trade that include your % of the loss. Winning trades, and the numbers.
By doing so, you will be able to monitor your progress and keep track by extracting the Trading Report every week without so much hassle of setting up a spreadsheet.