This is a summary of the blotter I use for my trades.
This is not an audited document. For correct performance, look under the actual tab. I don’t spend enough time correcting rounding errors, calculating exchange fees, NFA fees, or others. I know that over time the difference in profit and loss adds up. I record the trades as a risk management tool while I’m trading, slow down my thinking and try to not over-trade (not very successfully). I also use it to review trades and become more disciplined. I don’t use it to calculate my account balance. Rarely is my broker incorrect. I check its reporting weekly and that’s a separate exercise.
Read this post if you want to understand about the purpose of a blotter.
The complete blotter is recorded in a spreadsheet that includes the following items:
- Entry Date
- Exit Date
- Days in the trade
- Trade ID
- CQG symbol
- Expiration
- Class
- Market
- L/S (long/short)
- Units
- Entry price
- LAST_PRICE
- Profit/Loss
- Trade Idea Total (P+L)
- Closed (Y/N)
- Fundamental ID
- Technical ID
- BiMTi (Booy Insights Mid-Term Indicator)
- Setup Days
- Current Stop
- Trade Risk
- Total Trade Idea Risk
- Trade Idea Risk – Open P/L
- INITIAL STOP
- $ Risk
- $ Risk/Contract
- Min Target
- $ Reward
- $ Reward/ Contract
- Current R/R
- ORIGINAL R/R
- Multiplier
- Margin
- Total Margin
- All Stopped (scenario)
- -10%
- -30%
- Pre-entry checklist
- Is it done based on the closing price?
- Are there three points of Support or Resistance?
- Is it flat?
- Is the trade in the direction of the 42-day SMA?
- Are the fund’ls pointing in the same direction?
- Is there a money flow (COT) alignment?
- Is a multi-day retracement been confirmed?
- Risk no more than 1% of equity
- Risk no more than $2,500 per contract
- Have no more than 5% of closed equity at risk at one time.
- Have no more than 10% of cumulative risk this week
- Pre-exit checklist
- HAVE the Big Kids shown their hand? (end of day)
- PRICE: Has it met long-term Resist/Supp?
- TIME: Has it been about 1/3 of the build-up timeframe?
- BREAKOUT: Has it gone as far as the width of range it was in prior?
- REWARD for RISK: Have we made 3x the money we risked?
- Stop trading if down 4% for the month.
- MEAN REVERSION: Has it retrace 50% of previous move
- NEWS: Is the new news meaningful or just noisy?
- Did it take out the breakout days high/low
- Did it take out the previous wave high/low
- Reasoning:
- Technical
- Fundamental
- EXIT (comments)