Reconciled the ledger back to March. Three fills recorded at the wrong price, all in my favour, which tells you something about how memory works.

Stopped out three points from the low, again. I am aware this is the most common complaint in trading and I am making it anyway.

Funding has paid for the desk this quarter and I still check it every morning expecting it to have stopped.

Eleven months of the Asia session, from the log

I traded the Asia session for eleven months and kept every result. This is what the log says, rather than what I remember. What the log says Ranges are narrower, spreads are wider, and the two do not…

Nothing today. Book was thin, spread was wide, and I have finally learned that those two facts are one fact.

Two losses and the platform closes for the day. I have never once regretted that rule and I have regretted breaking it every single time.

Held through the close for the first time in four months. Sized so that being wrong costs a quarter of what being right pays, which is the only reason it was allowed.

If two of your trades share a timestamp to the second, your journal cannot sort them and neither can you. Ask me how I know.

I price the exit before I take the entry. It makes the good trades smaller and the bad trades survivable, which is the trade I want to be making.

Reconcile before you read the P&L. Every time I have done it the other way round I have found the error only after deciding how I felt about the week.

ETHUSD

Metals bid all session and I sat on my hands. Counting that as a win.

Write the note before the position closes. Afterwards you are not journalling, you are explaining.

Third touch or nothing. Missed two clean breaks this week following that rule and I would follow it again, which is either discipline or stubbornness.

Held through the close again. Sized so a gap against me is an annoying week rather than a new job.

Range broke without me. The level held for nine sessions and gave up on the tenth, twenty minutes after I went to make coffee.

The note I write after every fill has become more useful than the fill. Six months in, the pattern is that my worst entries all have the same sentence in them.

Spread is quoted, slippage is paid

Spread is the cost everyone quotes and slippage is the cost everyone pays. For eleven weeks I logged both on every fill, and the gap between them is larger than the edge most of my setups claim. What…

Started at half, added at the retest, and the retest is the only part that took any skill.

XAGUSD

London open, flat by lunch. Two setups, took one, and the one I skipped went further, which is the outcome that teaches you nothing.

The middle of the range is where accounts go to die quietly. I have started saying so out loud to stop myself trading it.