Why should one maintain a trading diary?

Taking up Forex trading in Malaysia is a business that is lucrative and full of scope for profits. However, several traders have tasted varying degrees of success over the years. To be consistently successful in the industry, traders must learn to look for signs of risks and read the patterns that lead to success or failure. 

But reading the chart pattern only reveals the trend that the market has taken in the past. To bring success to online trading, traders need to read Forex trading pattern and discern the places where one has tasted success or failure. How can this be done? By maintaining a diary or journal! 

Why should one have a trading diary?

Keeping track of every trade ever participated in is a good way of revisiting one’s past online trading activity and looking for areas of improvement. It helps traders identify and discern patterns in their trading activity and analyze the scope for improvement. 

- During a failure, a journal can help traders retrace their wrong moves and identify where they went wrong.

- During success, a journal can help Forex traders identify what is working for them and improve upon the aspect.

What are the attributes of a good trading diary?

1) The date and time when the decision to open a particular position

2) Reason that influenced the decision

3) The market entry strategy.

4) The Forex exchange rate at the time of the entry.

5) The fixed profit/loss.

6) Stop-loss limit

7) Reason for closing the order

8) The nature of outcome

9) Additional comments.

Studying the results of a diary

Evaluating one’s journal is sure to boost success as a trader. This helps a person identify where he/she would need to improve upon. Over time, this will improve one’s performance by minimizing blunders.

Showing one’s Forex diary to an expert broker can help Forex traders gain more insights into their own way of trading and dissect it to find scope for improvement. For such services, partnering with a reputed online Forex trading company in Malaysia like WesternFX can be highly useful.

The Significance of Picking the Right Entry Time into a Trade

Success in Forex trading is always dependent on one crucial factor- Timing! Getting the capital “T” right is one of the most important things if traders hope to see success in their trade.  Forex traders in Malaysia can relate to having a hard time when it comes to planning an entry into the market. For novices, it is always a challenge to plan an entry into the market as there several factors that need to be considered and any wrong move will significantly diminish the profits that can be made out of the trade. 

So how can traders plan a successful entry?

Traders can know if their entry was perfect only when they make a successful exit. However, to ensure a successful entry in the online trading market, the following steps need to be practiced.

• Trade should be taken up in the strongest currency pairs in the direction of the trend. This ensures maximum returns.
• Using stochastics, the health of a trend can be determined. This can be used to buy it at or near the trend line.
• A profit target of at least twice the amount invested should be booked. This gives enough room for the position to move.
• Traders can also look at the charts and identify previous successful forex trading strategies and their entry times. Using these can help traders make a successful entry into the market.
• Using limit orders can help traders get better prices. This helps them plan better entries.
• The next day’s entry should be placed based on the previous day's performance. Trades should be set up at the end of each day and should commence only after 15 minutes after the opening bell.
• Use the T.L.S. principle to set up the perfect trade. Identifying the right Trend, Level and Signal is important before entering a trade. When two of the three criterion match, a Forex trader can enter the market.

Figuring out when to enter a trade is an important exercise while Forex trading in Malaysia and getting it right is important for success in the long run. Developing a successful entry strategy can be arduous if one is new to the industry and is uninitiated in the fundamentals. Allying with a reputed online Forex trading company in Malaysia like WesternFX can help traders apply the principles better and attain success.