Many people say that a trading diary is very important for a trader, but for some reason not all Binary Options traders start keeping their diaries. In this article I will tell you why every trader should have a trading diary, as well as what its advantages are.

Trading diary of Binary Options trader transactions

A trading diary, oddly enough, is needed to record all trading transactions. But recording transactions is not enough, you also need to analyze them!

Recording transactions in a trading diary (keeping a trading diary) is not so difficult, and not much time is spent on it, but the benefits of such a process are very great. So immediately after trading or right during it, take a few minutes to write down all the important information about your trades in your trading diary.

The easiest way to keep a trading diary is in an electronic format, for example, in Excel (spreadsheet). In Excel you can build all the necessary graphs, calculate the percentage of profitable trades, etc..

A trader’s trading diary looks like this:

It records all transactions made by the trader. You should record information in your trading diary such as:

• Transaction date
• Transaction time
• The asset on which the transaction was opened
• Forecast (up or down)
• Expiration time
• Investment amount
• Transaction result
• Reason for opening a trade
• Comment (your conclusions on this transaction), if required

By recording each of your trades in a trading diary, you will be able to analyze your trading in great detail: remove unprofitable assets or entire strategies from your trading, increase risks on those instruments that bring you profit, etc..

Emotional or psychological diary of a Binary options trader

The Emotion Diary is a diary that complements a trader’s regular transaction diary. It is needed so that the trader can track his emotional state during trading.

Many traders are very indifferent to keeping this diary, mistakenly believing that it is useless. In fact, an emotional diary allows you to identify mistakes in your psychology, which, very often, are almost impossible to notice without this diary.

For the emotional component in trading, the “Comment on the transaction” column or a separate column is used, where, opposite each transaction, the trader writes down his emotional state at the moment. A very important note - the emotional diary is filled out right during trading!

This is necessary so that the trader receives the most current data “from the original source”, and does not invent it after trading. Also, it would be a good idea to write down your emotions during the transaction and after it is closed. As a rule, many traders experience stress during an open trade, and after closing it they feel happy or upset (depending on the results of the trade).

What to write in an emotional diary? It’s definitely not worth writing essays on the topic “how I spent my summer” - it takes a lot of time and will greatly distract from trading. When trading, write down only the most important information in a concise form. For example:

• Fear appeared
• There are doubts about this deal
• The result of the transaction upset me
• There was joy due to opening a trade at the right time

In trading, emotions always alternate with thoughts - this is normal. But a novice trader and a professional trader have very different thoughts and emotions.

If a novice trader: sees the entry point - feels excited - has placed too large an investment amount - greed controls the trader - waits for the deal to close - experiences fear (what if it closes at a loss?!) - the deal closed in the black - experiences joy.

So, an experienced trader: saw the entry point - a feeling of confidence in his trading methodology - opened a deal without exceeding acceptable risks - a feeling of correctness of actions - waits for the deal to close - indifference (there is nothing to be afraid of, even if the deal closes at a loss) - the deal closed in positive or negative - satisfaction due to the fact that the transaction was correct (opened strictly according to all the rules, and the result is not of great value).

Moreover, the same emotion can be caused by different reasons. It is very important that you yourself learn to determine the factor that caused this or that emotion in you. For example, for fear:

• Lack of confidence in your trading methodology (Doubt)
• Lack of practice (Uncertainty)
• Having too small a deposit for trading (Doubt)
• Fear of making mistakes (Uncertainty)
• Violation of the rules of risk management or money management (Fear)
• Trading with your last money, borrowed money (Fear)
• Reluctance to understand the intricacies of trading (Impatience)
• The thirst for quick money here and right now (Impatience)
• The price goes against your open trade (Fear)
• The deal closed at a loss (Indignation)

In this case, the trader’s emotional state during the transaction is as follows:

1. Doubt
2. Uncertainty
3. Doubt
4. Uncertainty
5. Fear
6. Fear
7. Impatience
8. Impatience
9. Fear
10. Indignation

And every novice trader experiences such a bouquet of emotions in his trading. Yes, there can be a lot of variations, and they depend on the trader himself and the situation, but, in any case, there are a lot of emotions and all of them greatly interfere with profitable trading.

Professionals in Binary Options trading trade without emotions or develop the skill of a “don’t care” person who doesn’t care what happens to his transaction and the amount invested in it. There is no fear or joyful emotions in this approach - indifference to the results of each individual transaction greatly helps to focus on the most important thing - taking the right actions (finding the right entry point into a transaction, control over risk management, etc.).

Emotional background is the weak side of every trader. Therefore, it is very important to write down all your emotions during trading, and after trading, sit down and analyze all the results. Thus, you can very quickly understand what emotions prevent you from trading profitably and when they arise - from here you can find a solution to these problems and, in the future, simply not perform those actions to which you are emotionally “allergic”.

Why all traders need a trading diary

Imagine this situation: you traded for several weeks with positive results, but then the market changed and, trading using the same technique, you began to make losses. What to do in such a situation? Of course, you need to find the cause of the losses:

• Remove assets that show the worst results from trading
• Choose the most profitable time for trading
• Optimize risk limits and profit limits (reduce or increase if necessary)
• Create an improved trading plan

The task is clear, but the problem is that not all traders keep their trading diary, and they simply do not have such information. It all comes down to:

• It seems that I traded on these assets... and maybe these too...
• It seems like I was trading during the day, but I don’t remember what time exactly
• I changed my risks dynamically as the trade balance changed and I don’t even know how to optimize them for my trading
• Improved trading plan? Did I even have a trading plan?!

The lack of information about your trading does not allow you to adapt to the changing market - everything is done at random, which means that the results will also be random. Somewhere you will be lucky and make money, but somewhere the market will take your money away because you guessed wrong. But did you come into trading to guess? You've come for consistent results in Binary Options trading, so do whatever it takes to earn that consistency in your earnings!

Of course, you can very easily do without a trading diary. Many traders calmly manage:

• Without risk management and money management
• Without knowledge in trading psychology
• Without trading discipline
• Without your own money invested in trading

So what’s stopping you from joining the ranks of losers who expect to get everything for free?! The choice is always yours - you decide who you want to be: a fools at Binary Options, who consistently enriches the broker, or an experienced trader.

What to write in your Binary Options trading diary

Your trading diary should contain very detailed information about all your actions during trading, as well as the reasons that prompted you to take these actions. You should not rely on your memory, as it very often fails - trading consists of routine, same-type actions, so tomorrow you will not be able to remember all your transactions that you made today.

Your trading diary is an encyclopedia of your trading knowledge. Moreover, you yourself are the author of this encyclopedia and write it only for yourself! Your trading diary must include:

• Your motivation that brought you into trading
• How do you analyze the market and how do you evaluate it?
• How do you analyze your mistakes or missed opportunities, and how do you look for ways to eliminate them?
• How do you track your trades and how do you respond to the results of those trades?

The more information you write down, the better the results will be in the future. Of course, no one forbids you to describe everything briefly - the main thing is that you yourself then understand what you are writing about and are able to analyze it.

You keep a trading diary in order to be able to find very important information about your trading in it at any time:

• The reason why you opened a particular trade
• Your risks in each specific transaction or your risk management rules
• The time for which your trades were open
• Detailed description of each transaction
• Your psychological state throughout the entire transaction (from the very opening of the transaction to the very closing)
• Analysis of the transaction after its closure

At first glance, it may seem that this is very unnecessary information and there is too much of it, but in practice, all this is very necessary for you! Keeping a diary may seem like a very boring and routine task to you (perhaps it is), so set your priorities right away - you need a trading diary as much as you need air, so it will be much better if you immediately love filling it out .

Similar to your trading plan , make a to-do list for yourself for the day, which will include filling out a trading diary, and after completing each component, put a check mark - this is a very simple way to force yourself to complete even the most routine tasks. Seeing work done (especially if you know it was very necessary) greatly motivates us to continue to do the right thing, so just checking off your to-do list can get you into the habit of consistently doing what you really need to do to trade profitably!

Why did you open a trade on Binary Options

Chaotic trading does not lead to the desired result, but, on the contrary, it is very suitable for draining deposits. When you start trading Binary Options, what do you think about? How and when to open a trade for an increase or decrease. You have tens of thousands of different trading strategies that you can use to find a signal, but this abundance of trading techniques negatively affects your results.

Having tried one strategy (making 2-3 trades using it) and not being satisfied with the results, a novice trader takes another strategy and tries to trade using it. And so on ad infinitum - they will all show the same result, which, of course, will not suit a novice trader.

After a beginner tries several dozen, or even hundreds of trading strategies, he begins to consider himself a very experienced trader - he no longer needs any strategies to find the exact signal, he can make predictions based only on intuition. Such trading comes down to something simple:

• I don’t want to open a deal here, but I’ll open one here
• It's probably worth opening a trade now
• The trade closed at a loss – it was not worth opening it

Everything leads to the fact that, in the end, a novice trader gets confused in his forecasts (he cannot remember in which situations he had profitable trades and in which he had unprofitable ones) and consistently loses money. This is a problem for many new Binary Options traders.

Every trader should know exactly what brings him profit and what takes away that profit! This is why it is very important that in your trading diary you always write down the reason why you opened each trade. Often, traders use several trading strategies simultaneously (in order to receive more signals to open trades and make the most of all price movements), so it is imperative to run trades for each strategy. If you don’t do this, then at the end of the trade you most likely won’t remember what thoughts prompted you to open each specific trade.

Screenshots of transactions in Binary Options trading

Screenshots of trades are a very good tool for analyzing your trading, which will clearly show you the strengths and weaknesses of your trading strategy. There are a number of programs that will simplify this process to the click of a button, so that very little time is wasted.

Typically, Binary Options traders take two screenshots:

• First – at the moment of opening a transaction
• Second – after closing the deal and receiving results

This is necessary in order to study your trading strategy in as much detail as possible. It often happens that in indicator trading strategies, these same indicators change their readings over time - they are redrawn. In such a situation, it will not be possible to simply rewind the chart and look at potential entry points - “a signal appeared here, so I would enter here, and here my trade would close in the black.” Here you have to do all the “dirty” work with your own hands. They also have to collect all the statistics for each trading strategy.

It would also be a good idea to indicate on the screenshot your entry point and the reasons why you entered. Another very interesting way that many professional traders use when trading is to show on a screenshot the moment the signal appears on the chart (usually using the MT4/MT5 terminal, Trading View chart or any other live chart) and the moment the broker opens a trade Binary options.

Literally, the screenshot is divided into two parts, where on one side is a platform for searching for signals, and on the other is the trading platform of a Binary Options broker. The same is done at the time of closing the transaction. This will help you understand how a particular strategy works for a particular Binary Options broker. Yes, strategies can show different results for different brokers - it's all about the difference in quote providers!

A “double” screenshot is not needed if you only use the trading platform of the Binary Options broker itself for trading. Fortunately, now more and more brokers provide their clients with very convenient platforms on which they can conduct full technical analysis of charts.

Description of the transaction in the trading diary of the Binary Options trader

After opening a trade and before its completion, you have plenty of free time - use it to your advantage. In any case, if you closely monitor the price movement, it will still not change. So, in this free time, write down a description of the transaction you made.

What should be included in the description:

• Reasons for opening a trade
• Personal observations
• Personal assumptions

For example, you opened a trade to rebound from support and resistance levels:

• Reason for opening a transaction: a possible price reversal from support and resistance levels.
• Personal observations: this level is of great interest to many market participants - there have been frequent price reversals from this level, so I believe that the level chosen for opening a transaction is very good.
• Personal assumptions: the price will most likely stay below/above the support and resistance level for at least 30 minutes, so this will be enough for the deal to close in the black. After the level is broken, it will be possible to open another deal, but in the direction of the current trend.

A detailed description of the transaction will help you not only clarify the reason for opening the transaction, but also follow the course of your thoughts. In addition, if you take screenshots of your trades, then the effect is enhanced and a detailed picture of your entire trade opens up in front of you. Finding your mistakes or ways to improve your trading techniques after such a detailed description is as easy as shelling pears.

Investment in a trade and trading volume in Binary Options

Have you ever watched how the amount of investment in a trade changes depending on your emotions while trading? Surely, you’ve already thought about this (if you’ve read the previous lessons of the training course), but you haven’t really been able to follow this in practice.

So, now you have this way - to clearly look at your trading from the outside. Of course, this requires a trade journal. Even if you have read about money management and risk managementin Binary Options trading, then your trading is still may very much depend on the fact that:

• What you are experiencing (fear of loss, excitement, joy) - very often the investment amount will grow under the influence of these emotions
• Confident in yourself and at the entry point (there were probably reasons for this - what?)
• Depend on the money invested in trading (increase the bet in the hope of making money faster)
• Experience joy (to hell with the rules of risk management - today I will earn a monthly profit!)
• You have doubts (the transaction amount is less than usual - why?)

All this very well describes your emotional state and dependence on the amount of investment in each transaction. Writing down such information is very important - over time, you will begin to notice the same emotional transitions, after which you consistently lose money. The solution is very simple - as soon as your emotional background changes for the worse for you, you should immediately stop trading.

But all this will be impossible to understand if you are lazy and forget about keeping a trading journal, as most often happens.

Study your trading diary or trader's journal

Having detailed information about your trading is, of course, good, but what good is this information if you write notes in your diary and never return to them. The approach “I’ll fill out a trading diary just so that some guy from onlyprofit.net will think that I’m an experienced trader, and then I’ll mentally check the box” doesn’t work in trading! You definitely need to not only fill out, but also study what you have already written.

At the end of each week—on the weekend—when the forex market is closed (except for cryptocurrencies), go through your trading journal with the following questions:

• What about the risks? Did they accurately meet acceptable standards? If not, then why was there a violation of risk management rules?
• Have all the expectations for the transaction forecasts been met? If not, why not? (You have screenshots of trades that show the opening and closing points of each trade!)
• What will improve your trading method?
• What was your emotional state while trading? When and why did it change?
• How did the size of the investment depend on changes in emotions?
• Did you stick to your trading plan? If not, why not?
• Were the trades opened only after you had thought it through or in a hurry? Why?
• What conclusion will you draw from this trade?

For example, knowing myself, I would answer these questions as follows:

• Risks met acceptable standards. There were no violations of the risk management
• Not all trades closed as expected - there are no 100% strategies, but the results could have been better
• Some of the trades closed at a loss due to the upcoming news - you need to think more often about the impact of news on trading
• The emotional state at the beginning of the trade was stable, by the end of the trade (while receiving losses), there was a desire to win back
• The investment amount did not change under the influence of emotions - if negative emotions arose, I stopped trading
• There were no deviations from the trading plan
• Some of the transactions were opened in a hurry - the desire not to miss the opportunity to make money
• 1) Accept for yourself that a missed opportunity is better than lost money! 2) Watch more news and the price reaction to them 3) Find a way to get rid of the desire to win back

As you can see, everything is not so difficult. The main thing is that you are honest with yourself! If you answer these questions while improving your results, you will end up with a picture where you are an experienced trader, but only in your head. In fact, you will remain the same trader who feeds the broker and more experienced colleagues. Do you need it? Besides, this is your personal information - you don’t have to show it to anyone, because ONLY you need it.

Improve your Binary Options trading skills

Is there a limit to improvement? Of course no. Especially in Binary Options trading or any other type of trading. The more you know, the more often you will realize that there is still a lot you don’t know.

So why stand still if you can improve your knowledge? Of course, you shouldn’t take on everything at once - too much new information will only worsen your trading results. So you need to take on one thing.

If you already have positive results in trading, then first of all you should focus all your efforts on consolidating these results:

1. Better study your trading method and everything connected with it
2. Analyze your trading diary to identify your mistakes and find solutions
3. Try the updated trading method

And so on in a circle until the result becomes stable. After achieving good results, take time to learn something new:

• Money management rules
• New trading strategies
• Improving your trading psychology
• Ways to analyze a trading diary

The knowledge you have already acquired will not escape you, and if you forget about it, then everything will be written down in your trader’s diary. You can safely start learning something new. As a rule, new knowledge complements existing knowledge, so that as a result you will get better trading results, and you will also feel that trading has become much easier.

Trading Binary Options is an activity that cannot be learned 100%. There will definitely be topics that you have never heard of or know nothing about. But this will not prevent you from studying exactly what interests you, and not just what is necessary. This is the beauty of trading - learn what you want and trade how you want. Of course, if the foundation was laid in the form of risk management, trading psychology and trading discipline.

Study the statistics of your trading on Binary options

Is your trading going very well and the results are very stable? There is a reason for this! Is your trading going very poorly and are you consistently losing your money? And there is a reason for this, or even more than one! But can you immediately say why your trading results are the way they are? I can't.

Studying your statistics will help you identify all the main points that greatly influence your trading results. Do you think, “I don’t care – it’ll do just fine!”? He who pays calls the tune! But you came to this page for some reason – probably to gain knowledge and improve your results with brokers. Isn't it?

And if this is the case, then take the time to thoroughly study your trading statistics! Believe me, this has never made anyone feel worse; on the contrary, many people have seen what started to go to hell and when.

Even if you have very good results in trading, it still:

• Fill out your trading diary
• Analyze your trading

Even if you are satisfied with your current income, this does not mean that it will always be so - the market may change and leave you, with your very profitable strategy or trading technique, with nothing. Today there is - tomorrow there is no! And if tomorrow you don’t have information about what you did and how you can adapt to market changes, then you lost!

What can we say about a situation where you are already a loser? If trading is going poorly and you are losing deposits frequently, then you 991% need a trading journal! You definitely can't do without it. Statistics will show you what you're doing wrong. There are many reasons for this - any step to the side and execution. More precisely, you simply lose your money.

What are trade statistics needed for and what to do with them

Statistics are needed for only two things:

• Finding what works or improving results
• Determining what doesn't work at all

If there are no questions with the second point - we were convinced that the strategy doesn’t work and threw it in the trash, then with the first point everything is more complicated. To improve trading results you need:

• Assets on which transactions are most often closed in the black? (and continue to trade on them)
• Best time to trade?
• What are the best risks for a particular trading method?
• Perhaps you need a unique trading plan?
• Best expiration time?
• Perhaps filters are needed to improve the results? Indicators? Additional entry rules?
• What is the optimal number of transactions for a trading session?
• At what points does the strategy stop giving profitable signals?
• What is your emotional state during trading? Stable is good! Changeable is bad!
• What can be done to improve the emotional component?
• What news should you miss?
• Were there any days of the week when the strategy consistently showed poor results?
• Maximum profit? Maximum drawdown? Why? What can be done to improve results?

These and similar questions should be answered when analyzing your trading statistics. I bet that after answering these questions, you will find many mistakes you make or ways to improve your trading method.

Trader's diary: you can't live without it

There is too much to write down in a trader’s trading diary - it’s long, boring, routine. But, you have been warned - there are no shortcuts in trading. It’s easy to just lose money, but you don’t need my instructions for this - you can handle this task 100% yourself. But that’s not why you came into trading...

In trading, like in any other job, there are interesting components that you want to return to again and again, and there are components that need to be done, even if you don’t want to. Keeping a trading diary falls into the second case - you don’t want to do it, but it’s necessary! So you will have to find motivation to do this chore every trading day.

A trading journal is your best analytical tool. How many trading strategies have you tried before you started reading this article? I'm sure there are a lot. How many of them brought you profit? One or two or even all of them brought only losses - right? Do you think that all these strategies do not allow you to make money?

The point is completely different - traders simply do not know how to use these strategies correctly. Moreover, traders not only do not know how to use strategies, but also do not have a tool that would allow them to eliminate this trading error. There is nothing to do in trading without a trading diary!

On the other hand, no one will tell you how to keep your trading diary - express it in a form that is familiar and understandable to you. You may even swear or berate yourself, pointing out your shortcomings or temporary dementia. Learn to influence yourself through a diary, condemning yourself for obvious mistakes. Moreover, don’t be shy in your expressions - next time you won’t want to be in the place of that fool you were yesterday. Tested - it works!

Keep an emotional diary and analyze it often - see how your emotional state changes during trading and how it changes over time. You may notice improvements because... You will no longer make the usual mistakes.

As I said before, there is no need to show your trading diary to anyone - so be as honest as possible with your diary. He will not only reflect you as a trader, but will also become an excellent assistant and a good mentor. The more time you spend on your trading diary, the greater the return on it.

Trading diary: results and conclusions

Keeping a trading diary is mandatory for every trader - I hope you have already understood this after reading this article. Your trading should start with your diary (drafting a trading plan) and should end there (analyzing your trading).

Since keeping a trader's diary is mandatory, try to turn this process into an exciting game where the reward is improving your trading results. If you cope with this, then the results will not be long in coming; if not, then you will very quickly give up keeping a diary and will not receive any important information that could significantly increase your income.