UPDATE (Nov. 13, 2022): This is one of my oldest posts and since I wrote this, I've found much better trading journal solutions. You can see my current recommendations here.

The Problem: You only have one trading account, but you want to track multiple trading systems individually.

Doing this can make you feel like a circus clown, juggling multiple systems at once.

Keeping track of the performance of each trading method can be a painful experience.

But it doesn't have to be.

This post will show you the easy way to automatically journal your trades, then tag each trade so you can track the performance of each individual trading system.

The Solution

Luckily, this is easy to do with MyFxBook.  Once you setup your account,

MyFxBook will automatically start to journal all the trades you take.

After you a few trades available login to your account.

When you click on the History tab, it will look something like this.

Then click on the tag icon on the left side of each trade.

This will show the tags dialog box.

Click on the Edit Tags link to create a new tag.

You can choose a different colors to represent the different methods you are trading.

After the tag is created, it will appear in the Tags Available section.

Click on an available tag to tag that trade.

Tag all of the trades with the method you used to take that trade.

After all of your trades are tagged, it is now time to see how each method is performing.

Now go to the top of the screen and click on the Custom Analysis link.

A box will appear that will give you different options on what you want to analyze.

Click on the Tag tab to choose a tag or multiple tags.

Check the boxes of the tags you want to analyze.

In this example, we are going to examine the performance of the Pivots system.

Click on the Analyze button to show the custom analysis.

Now the data that you see on the screen will only be shown for the trading systems that you chose.

This is how only the Pivots system performed during the reporting period.

Conclusion

As you can see, this method makes it super easy to track the performance of individual trading systems within a single account.

Since most of the journaling work is already done for you, all you have to do is add the right tag to each trade.

The best part is that MyFxBook is absolutely free.

The post How to Individually Track Multiple Trading Systems In The Same Account appeared first on Trading Heroes.

UPDATE (Nov. 13, 2022): I wrote this post awhile back and since then, I've found much better trading journal solutions. You can see my current recommendations here.

I've been searching high and low for a Forex trading journal that will help me review my trades, but won't take a ton of time to fill out.

After a lot of trial and error, I have found the answer in Evernote.

In this post, I'll show you how I use Evernote as a FX trading journal and give you some tips and tricks that have helped me make the process more painless.

How to Journal Your Forex Trades

Before we get started with how to journal trades, if you do not know how to export or write notes on charts, these videos will get you started.

You will need this to add charts to Evernote.

If you already know how to do this, skip to the Using Evernote section.

Exporting Your Forex Charts

This video will show you how to export charts in two different ways.

One is the standard Metatrader export method, the other is a technique that you can use for any chart that you want to capture.

Quick reference:

• Metatrader 4 – File –> Save as Picture
• Mac screenshot – Command + Control + Shift…then press 3
• PC screenshot – Print Screen (button)

Using TradingView

TradingView is amazing trading software that also makes it easy to export charts.

Editing and Making Notes on Your Chart

After you have a chart, you will want to resize it and add words, arrows and possibly funny faces to your chart.

This video will show you how to do it.

I will show you how to do it in Photoshop, since that is what I use, but I will list some options after the video.

Some are free and some are paid.

Recommended image editing software:

• Photoshop – The Lamborghini of image editing software. A great product, but you do not have to spend that much money.
• Photoshop Elements – Basic image editing that is a lot cheaper and probably good enough for most trading purposes.
• GIMP – Runs on Windows and Mac. Very similar to Photoshop, for the price of free.

Using Evernote as Trade Journal Software

Now that we have that out of the way, this quick video will show you how easy it is to get started with Evernote.

The great part is that you Evernote is free if you upload less than 60 MB per month.

It work on both PC and Mac and you can download an app to your iOS, Android or Windows device.

Of course, you don't have to use Evernote, there are many other alternatives.

You could just use Microsoft Word or even a free Blogger blog.

I use Evernote as my trading journal app because it makes it really easy to organize my notes and I can access my trading log from any internet connected device.

But what you use is up to you.

Tagging Trades in Evernote

One useful thing that you can do is tag your trades, so they are easier to study later. For example, you could tag all of your losing trades, to see if you are making a common mistake.

You could also tag all of the trades that were taken using a particular system.

Try not to make it too complex, but a basic set of tags can go a long way to helping you review your trading log faster.

See Good and Bad Trades at a Glance

Remember a losing trade is not necessarily a bad trade and a winning trade is not necessarily a good trade.

The only thing that matters is if you followed your trading plan and if you took an A+ setup.

But it can be difficult to keep track of how well you are doing.

You could use another spreadsheet, but who needs another one of those…right?!

The easiest way that I have found to do this is to use emojis in the title of the note.

I track four things:

1. Is this journal entry complete?
2. Entry rating, out of a possible 5 points. How would I rate the quality of the entry setup?
3. Exit rating, out of a possible 5 points. Did I follow the exit rules for this strategy?
4. Was this a winning or losing trade?

Here's an example from my own journal.

As you can see, this makes it really easy to see how well you are trading, just by taking a glance at your list of notes.  Feel free to use emojis that make sense to you.

To add an emoji, you can do the following:

• On Mac, press Control + Command + Space Bar to bring up the emoji menu.
• On Windows, open the touch keyboard from the icon in the lower right corner. Then click on the smiley face.
• On mobile, just use the emoji button on your keyboard.

What About MyFxBook?

MyFxBook used to be pretty good, as I mentioned here. It still works, but it doesn't always work well.

There really needs to be a dedicated journaling site, with automatic trade updates…that actually works.

FXStats (formerly Tradingrex) comes close, but the new owners are not interested in making the product better and only want to collect affiliate commissions from annoying popup ads.

It's a shame because that site as so much potential.

I'm working on a solution, but until that's ready, I recommend using Evernote with MyFxBook.

If Evernote isn't quite your thing, you can also try using Trello.

Other Things to Journal

Now that we have the basic stuff out of the way, let's get into two other things that we can journal that will make us better traders. These things cannot be journaled in MyFxBook, so that is where something like Evernote is especially helpful.

The first thing that I will be journaling is the possible setups that I occasionally see in the market. It is a good way to create notes that I can go back to later and possibly turn into new trading methods.

I can remember a few times in the past that I noticed patterns that could be a good trading system, but I forgot them because I didn't write them down.

For example, say that you are sitting at your computer one night and see that the AUDJPY seems to bounce particularly hard off of the 00 levels…more than other pairs.

You should note that down, so you can backtest it later.

You might also observe a Big Shadow on the GBPNZD 30 minute chart. Is that a good pattern to trade on that pair and timeframe?

Only one way to find out…

I will also be recording trades that I missed.

This is not to beat myself up about missing the trade, but just to get the benefit of going through the trading process and get more practice.

There is no way that I can take every single trade (and expect to get any sleep) without an EA, but I can benefit from learning from every single valid setup.

If you are serious about getting better, then this is highly recommended for keeping up with current market conditions.

Also consider capturing lower timeframe charts and charts from related markets, such as gold, oil, stocks, etc.

Trading Journal Template

Still wondering what you put into your Forex trading journal? Let me help you get started.

Here is what I put in my trading diary template: 

• Entry Notes:
• % Risk:
• Pips Risk:
• Open Chart:
• Exit Notes:
• Result:
• Close Chart:
• Secondary Review:

Yes, it doesn't have to be more complex than that.

Keep it simple and it's more likely that you will actually do it.

Get Started With Your Forex Trading Journal Right Now

Journaling your trades can seem like a tedious and boring activity, but reviewing your results is the key to success.

This is true in any endeavor.

Kelly Slater is one of the most successful professional athletes ever, and by far, the most decorated professional surfer. He has won 11 world titles, a feat that may never be topped.

In his first book, Pipe Dreams, Kelly mentions that one of the habits that he picked up early on was to review the results of his heats. This helped him figure out what he was doing wrong and what certain judges were looking for.

It works the same way in trading.

So what are you waiting for? Get started right now. Setup a MyFxBook account, sign up for Evernote. Both are free, so you have no excuses.

Do this regardless if you are trading in demo or live.

To get more tips on simplifying your trading journal, read this post.

The post How to Turn Evernote Into a Kick-Ass Forex Trading Journal appeared first on Trading Heroes.

In this post, I'm going to break down MFE and MAE, show you where you can get these metrics, and how to use them to improve your trading.

Note: I favor using multiple of risk, instead of pips or dollar amounts, when measuring these metrics. So I'll add a “R” to the end of some of these names to tell you that I'm using the risk multiple.

If you had a 50 pip stop loss on a trade, and you made 100 pips on that trade, then you would make +2R.

In my opinion, this is a much more useful way to measure your results because it's relative to your stop loss.

Measuring results by dollar amounts or pips does not take into account how much you risked to achieve a result.

What MFE and MAE Stand For

Maximum Favorable Excursion (MFE)

The maximum amount of profit that was available while a trade was open.

Maximum Adverse Excursion (MAE)

The maximum amount of loss that was available while a trade was open.

Example

Here's an example of MAE/MFE on a chart. I also threw in MaxR, which I'll explain later in this post.

How They Can Improve Your Trading

There are two ways that MAE and MFE can be used to improve your trading results.

Leave Less Profit on the Table

If you notice that your average MFE is significantly better than the average result of your trades, then you are leaving profits on the table.

For example, let's say that you have 100 trades and your average profit is 1.4R.

But when you look at your average MFEP on these trades, it's 2.6R.

This might mean that you can move your profit targets to 2R to capture more profits on your winning trades.

MFE can help on losing trades too. Let's say that the average MFER on your losers is 1R.

This means that there are probably quite a few trades where you could have had a nice profit, but for some reason, you took a loss.

It could be a function of your trading strategy, but it could also mean that you are closing your trades out too late and are missing the most profitable part of the move.

Whatever the case may be, your average MFE could give you clues on how to leave less profit on the table.

Tune Your Stop Losses

First of all, if the average MAER of your trades is more than about 1.1R (accounting for slippage), then you're probably moving your stop loss in a negative direction, after you enter the trade.

This is an easy red flag to spot and a habit that can be easy to fix.

Now, there may be profitable trading strategies were you need to move your stop loss in a negative direction, but I've never seen one.

For the most part, you should only be moving your stop in a positive direction.

Tracking MAER on all your trades will alert you to this issue, so you can improve your trading habits.

Second, if your MAER on winning trades is consistently less than 1R, you can explore the idea of tightening up your stop loss.

For example, if your MAER on winning trades is -0.22R, then you may be able to cut your stop loss in half and still get good results.

A decrease in stop loss would also improve your returns, even if you use the same take profit levels.

To get MAE and MFE stats for your trading check out these trading journal solutions.

Warnings When Using MAE and MFE

Trading metrics can help you dramatically improve your trading, but also you have to understand their limitations.

So let's take a look at a couple of things that you should be aware of when using MAE and MFE.

Have a Significant Sample Size

First, you need to be sure that you have a significant number of trades before you start making changes to your trading strategy.

If you have a strategy that doesn't produce frequent trading signals, then you should look for a minimum of 30 trades.

Ideally, you would have at least 100 trades before you start making any decisions, but that's not always possible.

You can get more data by backtesting or beta trading.

This will allow you to build up the number of trades that you examine and allow you to make more informed choices.

What Happens Afterwards Matters Too

Second, one thing that these metrics don't show you is what happens after your trades are closed.

This is why I started using MaxR with MFE and MAE.

In order to improve the profitability of a trading strategy, you can either reduce the stop loss, or increase the take profit.

It's generally easier to increase the take profit level, and using MaxR can help you do that.

MFE won't help you unless you are closing your trades way too late.

Even then, you might be able to squeeze a little more out of your trades by using MaxR instead of MFE.

Use the Right Type of MAE and MFE

Finally, be sure to measure MAE and MFE in a way that actually helps you.

As I mentioned before, these metrics can be measured in different ways:

• Pips
• $ per share (stocks)
• Total $ per trade
• Multiple of risk

If you only trade one market, then pips or $ per share is fine.

For example, if you only trade the EURUSD or just the S&P500 E-mini, then you are comparing apples to apples when doing your trade analysis.

However, if you trade multiple currency pairs, then 10 pips in the EURUSD won't be an accurate comparison to 10 pips in the GBPJPY because the GBPJPY is much more volatile.

Similarly, a total MFE of $25 in Apple stock can't be compared to a $25 MFE in USDCHF because they are two totally different markets, with different volatility and commission structures.

When you use the same trading strategy across multiple markets and currency pairs, the most accurate way to compare the results is by using P-ratio. 

How to Get MFE and MAE

There are several different ways that you can get these metrics. Most trading journals like MyFxBook will give you MFE and MAE.

But in my opinion, most trading journals don't display these metrics in a way that's useful.

For example, MyFxBook gives you these stats in pips.

As I mentioned above, that works well if you only trade one pair, but if you trade multiple pairs, the information becomes less useful.

Here's an example of the MyFxBook chart.

I don't know about you, but I've always had trouble understanding how this MAE (and similar MFE) graph can help me improve my trading results.

If it works for you, then fantastic…use this graph.

But if you're like me and would prefer a more useful presentation of MAE and MFE, then try this next method.

Another way to get MAE and MFE is to simply record it yourself in a spreadsheet.

I find it useful to record these stats in P-ratio format or MAEP/MFEP.

For long trades: 

• MAEP: (MAE price – entry price) / (entry price – stop loss price)
• MFEP: (MFE price – entry price) / (entry price – stop loss price)

For short trades: 

• MAEP: (entry price – MAE price) / (stop loss price – entry price)
• MFEP:  (entry price – MFE price) / (stop loss price – entry price)

Then average your MAEP and MFEP and see what you discover.

If you have at least 30 trades, you can start to think about making changes to your strategy.

Final Thoughts on MFE and MAE

So that's how to use MFE and MAE to improve your trading.

They may help you…they may not. It all depends on how well you are currently trading.

But if you have never analyzed these metrics before, they are certainly worth looking at.

You might be surprised at what you discover.

The post MFE and MAE Explained: How They Can Improve Your Trading appeared first on Trading Heroes.

By nature, traders are generally pretty private people.  So a lot of you may not be interested in being able to show the world your trading results.  Besides, it can be a little embarrassing if you are not trading well or you are just starting out.

I don't care.  If I'm going to blog, I'm going to do it right and that means that I need to show the world that I'm actually doing what I'm writing about.

If you are like me and one of the few people who do want to publicize your results, then this article is for you.  This post actually came as a result of a good question that I got from Micah Fox of InvestingJourney.com on Twitter.

I figured that if he wanted to learn how to do this, you may want to learn how to do it too.

You might consider publishing your results if:

• You are a blogger and want to get more links back to your website
• You want to get more publicity on Twitter
• You want to manage money in the future and want to attract attention to your trading and establish a track record
• You want to save yourself the public embarrassment of bad trades being published publicly (motivate to trade well)

If one of the above describes you, then this article will show you how to tweet your trades with no additional effort, except for the 15 minute setup in the beginning.  I'll show you the little tricks to make auto tweeting your trades a great marketing strategy and what to avoid to keep yourself out of trouble.

It can be done in demo or live accounts and you can hide private information like account balances.  You can setup your reporting just to show % profit/loss, which is the most important information anyway.

The big picture

So what we are going to be doing here is connecting our live or demo Forex account to MyFxBook (MFB) to track our trading results.  Within MFB, there is a function where you can automatically tweet each of your trades.

MFB is a free online reporting website that has read-only access to your trading account (it cannot make trades) and will graph your trading performance and allow you to journal your trades.

That is the basic idea.  Now lets get into how to do it.

A word of caution

Before we go any further however, there are a couple of things that I would like to caution you about.

First, MFB actually has two ways that you can tweet your trades.  You can tweet when you open a trade or close a trade.

Or you can do both.

There is a temptation to be a smarty pants and tell the whole world when you are opening a trade.  I would strongly recommend against this. 

The reason is that, especially if you are trading well (or even if you aren't), people may mistake your tweets for trading advice and start to mimic your trades.

But they may get the tweet late or not understand the entry and enter at the wrong place and lose money.  Then they might badmouth you or worse, take legal action against you for “causing” them to lose money.

It's just not worth the headache.  Don't try to be the smartest Forex Trader on Twitter.

Second, just to be safe, I would put a link to a disclaimer in your profile description somewhere.  I'll show you how to do it in a bit, but just keep that in mind for now.

How to setup MyFxBook the first time

This can depend on your broker, but if you are using Metatrader, it is pretty straightforward.  The individual instructions can be found here on the MyFxBook website.

The MFB website does a pretty good job of showing you what to do, so check that out before you proceed.  If MFB doesn't support your broker, then open a demo account at another broker that is supported.  I recommend using Oanda because their demo accounts don't expire.

Once that is setup, MFB has a great set of reporting tools to show you how well you are doing.

One thing to note is that your system does not need to be publicly accessible in MyFxBook for the Tweeting function to work.  Also, when people visit your account report page, you can hide sensitive information like the account balance.

Setting up shortlinking

Why do you need shortlinking?  Because in this online world of short burst messages, every character counts.  Instead of using a long ass website address, you want to be able to use as many of those characters as possible for your message.

Not to worry, you can set this up for free through sites like Bit.ly.  Shortening your link not only allows you to use more characters, but it also allows you to track how many clicks you are getting on your links and where those clicks are coming from.

I use Bit.ly myself and I really like it.  You can setup a new account by going to their website.  After you set that up, you will be able to use that account in the next steps.  Be sure to look out for the bonus lesson at the bottom where I show you how to setup your own branded shortlinks with Bit.ly.

Setting up Twitter

If you do not have a Twitter account, head on over to Twitter and set one up.

Here are instructions on how to get started with Twitter.

Remember to put a disclaimer into your Twitter profile description if you want to be safe.  It might be a little paranoid, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

If you don't have a blog already, just setup a free one on WordPress.com or Blogger.com, create a page with your disclaimer statement on it, shortlink it in Bit.ly and add the link in your Twitter profile.

Don't know what to say in a disclaimer?  Feel free to cut an paste from my Disclosure Statement.  I make no guarantees if you copy mine, but it will get you started.  And just like when you copied work in high school, remember to put your name on it, not mine. 

Using hashtags

What is a hashtag?  You can simply think of hashtags as labels that start with #.  It is just a way to add a label to your tweet so people can only follow tweets with that label.  For example, if you wanted to find tweets about Bruce Springsteen, you would setup a search for the hashtag #theboss.

But if you wanted to see all of my trades, you would follow the hashtag #thebossfx.  Here is a video on how to setup hashtag searches in twitter.

Hashtags are important because people follow hashtags.  If you use the right hashtags or invent your own, that increases the chance that more people will find your tweets and go to your website or check out your trading record.

Setting up the connection between Twitter and MFB

Now you have to go into MFB and setup your account to broadcast to Twitter.  Here is a video on how to do it:

Remember to put in a link to your blog or back to your public trading report on MFB so people can track what you are doing.

What I do is embed the MFB widget into a page on my blog and send people to my blog page.  This gets people to my website where they can still see my trading record, but they can also find other useful information and sign up for my email course.

Here is a video on how to embed the graph of your trading in your blog:

Bonus lesson (totally optional)

If you want to add a touch of personalization to your links, you can do what is called a domain hack.  Don't worry, it's not illegal, it just refers to using special domain endings to create domains that spell whole words or phrases, using fewer characters.

Some famous examples are:

• del.ico.us (10 characters instead of delicious.com, which is 13 characters)
• about.me (8 characters instead of aboutme.com, which is 11 characters)
• goo.gl (6 characters instead of google.com, which is 10 characters)

Yes, every character counts.

The best way that I have found to find domain hacks is to use the website domai.nr.  It is a free site that is a huge help.  Get creative and see what you can come up with for your personal name or blog name.

Using a domain hack for your bit.ly links will look more branded and stand out…not to mention they are what all the cool kids are doing.  But if you could really care less, then don't do it.  The standard bit.ly links work just as well.

These domains cost money and can cost significantly more than regular domains like .com or .net.  For example, I purchased thero.es for this blog.  The .es ending is for Spain, but luckily they only cost about $17 per year.

However, I also purchased hugh.hk for my personal links.  This is a Hong Kong ending so those cost $50 per year.

I've seen domains for certain countries that cost $1,000 per year or more.  If the one you want is too expensive or not available, get creative and try other options.  There are so many ways to skin a shortlink and domai.nr is really good at suggesting them.

I recommend Namecheap and Marcaria to register domains.  Namecheap is more for the common domains and Marcaria is for the more exotic foreign domains.

Quick note: No matter how hot or how good a driver you think Danica Patrick is (I think she is both), and no matter how many strip tease commercials they have during the Super Bowl, do not get anything from GoDaddy.  That is not just my personal opinion, Google it.

Same with Network Solutions, I don't know how they can charge that much for their domains.  But I guess if people pay…

Anyway, that is my lesson on domain hacks for your shortlinks.  Fun stuff, but totally optional.

Conclusion

So if you are looking for a way to publicize your trading on Twitter is this the easiest way to do it…that I know of.

Is this something you would do or are you doing it already?

Photo:  Picture Perfect Pose, quinn.anya

The post How to Automatically Tweet Your Forex Trades appeared first on Trading Heroes.

UPDATE (Nov. 13, 2022): This is one of my oldest posts and since I wrote this, I've found much better trading journal solutions. You can see my current recommendations here.

If you do not like to record your trades like I do, then this may be the solution you have been looking for.

In a previous post, I showed you how to get Oanda to work with MyFxBook.

In this post, I thought I would take a step back and show you what it can do.

The best part about this site is that it is totally free and you can post your trading results from MyFxBook to a widget on your website or create a link to your reports to show potential investors or other traders.

There are a lot of metrics that you can view about your trades.

These measurements can help you discover things like: why you may not want to trade on Tuesdays or you may need to do more backtesting in the EURCHF.

As a side note, I actually tried to create a trading log like this in Microsoft Excel, back in the day.

It just got too complicated and I felt that I was wasting my time developing that spreadsheet when I really should have been backtesting and figuring out a way to trade better.

I resigned myself to using a simple spreadsheet instead and using very simple analysis.

Using the interbroker capability of Metatrader, these reporting websites can now update your log automatically and provide more information than you ever imagined possible.

Anyway, here is the video:

Click here to get started with MyFxBook.

The post Video Tour of MyFxBook appeared first on Trading Heroes.

UPDATE (Nov. 13, 2022): This is one of my oldest posts and since I wrote this, I've found much better trading journal solutions. You can see my current recommendations here.

In a recent post, I called the Oanda Metatrader and MyFxBook (MFB) integration an epic fail.

As you know, Oanda is my favorite broker and I believe that MFB has the best free trade reporting system for forex.

Well, today I eat my words because…

…I just discovered that Oanda DOES work with MyFxBook.

The fail lies in the instructions on how to setup the accounts in MFB.

This discovery came after I tried to setup another demo account with a different broker.  That one didn't work either…WTF.

Before I get into the solution, here is the Account Setup screen in MFB:

Nowhere on the screen does it say that there are extra setups in Metatrader that are required.

However, upon doing a little digging, I found a page on how to configure Metatrader to publish account information to the MFB server. That page is currently gone, so you'll have to contact MFB directly.

This is a key step that was somehow left out by the website programmers.

If you were also wondering about the link at the top of the page that says something about the Account Addition Wizard, that didn't help me either.

I'm not sure what that is all about.

So here are the steps to getting Oanda to work with MyFxBook:

1. Open an Oanda demo or live account (if you haven't already).
2. Create a new MT4 sub account in your Oanda Funds Management System.
3. Fund the account and download MT4 for Oanda.
4. Setup MT4 with your account information so you are getting data and can trade.
5. Signup for MyFxBook.
6. Login to your MFB account and go to: Portfolio –> Add Account…
7. Fill out the necessary information.  If you need to reset the Investor password, go to:  Tools –> Options –> Server –> Change.  Enter your current account password, then select the Change Investor (read only) Password button and enter a new Investor password.
8. Then follow these steps to setup and test the Metatrader publish function.
9. Enter a couple of practice trades to be sure that everything is working.  If everything was setup correctly, you will see Active under Connection in your account list.
10. Be patient, it may take a few minutes to start working.  Metatrader publishes the account information to MFB every 5 minutes, so you may have to wait for the next update.

Conclusion

That's it!  Very easy once you know what to do.

And yes, I did email MFB kindly telling them that their setup instructions suck.

But it's OK because their website otherwise rocks!

If you haven't tried MFB yet, I would highly recommend it.

There is so much that you can find out about your trading by using their website and FREE is the best price I have ever heard of.

There are also other great features that I will write about in future posts.

Worried about privacy and security issues?

Rest assured…

Since they are using an Investor password, that only gives them the ability to see the trades, not actually execute anything.

If you are still having issues with MyFxBook not updating in a timely manner, then try this journaling solution.

The post How to Get Oanda to Work With MyFxBook appeared first on Trading Heroes.