The only way to see how to turn a losing or borderline lucrative forex trading system into a winning one is to record all of your trades. It doesn’t make much difference whether you are trading in the real market, in demo or maybe back testing. Having a clear and comprehensive record of every trade is the single thing that may give the opportunity to see where your system is succeeding and where it is failing.

Your tracking system does not need to be complex of tricky to administer. You will keep this on your personal computer naturally but you may also want to print off a blank one to fill out as you trade everyday. It is generally quicker to fill out you chart with a pencil while you have got the info on screen, than to switch into Excel and type the right figure in the right space on your spreadsheet.

The very first thing to note is that if you use a few different trading methods you want to record them on separate spreadsheets so that you can see which need attention and which are doing fine and shouldn’t be messed with. They might also rely on different signals so you’ll need different column headings for your numerous systems.

As well as the opening and closing costs and profit in pips, there is other info that you should record. You will want your position size, costs ( spread, charges etc ) and the profit and loss in bucks ( or the currency that your account is held in ). You may also want to record the categorical signals that made you open the trade. For example if you have a system that depends on the stochastic being in the highest or lowest quintile ( above 80% or below 20% ) you can record the precise point it was at when you made a decision to open the trade.