Learning how to trade is very much like a science.

You first formulate a potential trading strategy (the hypothesis).

Then, you must begin making trades according to the strategy while carefully logging and tracking important metrics about each trade (the experiment).

Finally, after making enough trades, you must analyze those metrics to deduce how effective the strategy is and how you can potentially improve it (thereby formulating a new hypothesis).

This course is designed to help you with the second and third steps of this process. You will learn how to properly log and track your trades with great detail in addition to how you can effectively analyze that data to improve your trading performance!

Hands-on Class Project

For the course project, you will be creating the spreadsheet shown throughout this class.

1. Identify the list of metrics you want to track for your trades.

 Consult the Spreadsheet Setup & Trade Logging lesson for ideas.
I would recommend tracking at minimum the following metrics…

1. Ticker Symbol
2. Number of Contracts/Shares
3. Date Entered/Exited
4. Opening/Closing Price
5. Capital Requirement
6. Return on Capital (ROC)
7. Realized P/L

2. Follow the guidance of the Spreadsheet Setup & Trade Logging lesson to create the top section of your spreadsheet.

 This is where you dedicate a column for each metric selected from Step 1 and subsequently log your trades.

3. Identify the list of portfolio-level statistics you want to track.

 Consult the Portfolio Statistics lesson for ideas on this.
I would recommend at minimum to track the following statistics…

1. Total Realized P/L
2. Win Rate
3. Total Profit
4. Total Loss
5. Avg. Profit
6. Avg. Loss
7. Expected P/L per Trade

4. Follow the guidance of the Portfolio Statistics lesson to create your portfolio statistics table.

 Remember to take advantage of the built-in functions that come with your spreadsheeting application to make the calculations of these portfolio statistics easy and automated.

5. Follow the guidance of The Watch List lesson to create your watch list organized by sector, industry, or some other category type.. Don’t forget to create your own color scheme as well to help you further understand how your portfolio is structured.

At this point, you should have your trade logging spreadsheet set up! Start logging your trades going forward and consult the Trade Statistics & Analysis lesson to get ideas on how to analyze the data you will start collecting!

Feel free to share your spreadsheets to give other students ideas or if you would like some feedback!