The importance of maintaining trading record

: there are many benefits of maintaining a trading record....of all your trades.....

: e.g. in judging your track record, getting insights into what is working and what is not....

: ....u r losing in which setups and winning in which ones....

: .....what is ur average trading size.....what is ur average losing size....

: .....and many more benefits....besides for income tax prupose.....

: let me share my insights from my trading record that i maintain....

: 1. my success ratio is 72.7 %

: 2. my average winsize is 65points

: 3. i profit 88% of the times when i trade pro-trend

: 4. i have lost 65% of the times i have taken anti-trend position......also, the average winning size is much lesser

: 5. out of all my losses pro-trend, 75% are at the turning points.....i.e. when the market was about to turn, the trend was about to change.....this insight from the data led me to look for answers which i think i have found....

: 6. my success ratio with futures is 88% against 50% with options....this was a real shocker as earlier i always used to prefer options thinking they were safer.....

: ....there are many such insights i got from my trading data that i got......

: had i not maintained my trade record, i would have had no data to analyse. i wouldn't have had any base to check whether my trading was actually improving....i wouldn't have known what was working and what was not.....

: maintaining ur trade record always helps you know the reality....where u stand....

: besides helping maintain a clean record for taxation.....

.....another insight is that my average holding time is 3.5days

.....i take an average of 10.5 trades per series

....my average loss size 32.5 points

....i loose the heaviest when i have highest lot size anti-trend!!! this was heights of stupidity.....i came to know about this only from trade record and stopped the hell doing it

the more i search, the more interesting things data tells me

whenever i am down.....i look at the entries of my biggest wins....

whenever i am on cloud 9 (like today) i check the entries with my biggest losses.

trading starts revealing secrets to the student who offers his or her life to it on a platter....self talk

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“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”
― H. James Harrington

stay invested in good stock during mkt corrections

market corrections are rarely more than 33% from the highs

sometimes they are much less, or, the rebounds from the correction lows are so fast that u r not able to get on to the band wagon again.

not only this, u rarely trust the bounceback after correction so easily. u keep on suspecting the recovery and keep hoping that the stock will go down further before u buy back the stock again.

four more logics and the argument in favour of staying put with the good stocks in correcting markets is complete.....

1. any gains in the stock will be totally tax free if u stay invested for more than 1 year! u will save upto 33% tax u were otherwise required to pay! that 33% will take care of any potential 33% decline!

2. u don't miss on any bonus issues or dividends etc.

3. peace of mind.

4. you can always buy more when good stocks decline!

zakaah

it is ok if u and i search answers to our questions
in whatsoever religions we wish.
i was recently stuck in the groove of the dilemma
"is savings of wealth / money permitted by god?"
i had a notion (hear-say) that islam prohibited savings.
i searched
and i found
that i was wrong.
islam doesn't prohibit savings.
but it does make it mandatory to pay "zakaah"
simply translated
'zakaah' means "to purify"
here, it means the purification of wealth and soul.
zakaah is a form of "charity"
it helps in pooling of assets for its distribution and use for welfare and growth.
if you perform 'zakaah' you will be relieved of the guilt of earning while world suffers.
'zakaah' leads to freedom from hatred, jealousy, selfishness, uneasiness and greed.
how much 'zakaah' is payable on ones income?
well, i read somewhere that 2.5% of the net income is the minimum prescribed.
in sikhism, 10% is prescribed ("dasvandh")
--
it suddently hit me that if we pay tax honestly
it broadly ranges from 10% to 30%
we are infact paying a form of "zakaah"
the more we earn, the more "zakaah" we pay.
the trouble is that we have less and less confidence and faith on the government
that this "zakaah" will be properly and justly and assuredly well used!
--
anyhow,
just knowing about the "zakaah" has relieved me of certain burdens so much.
performing it actually, regularly and without any hesitation or smartness
is likely to give me tremendous peace and tranquility.