Journaling and Backtesting (Notion)

[David Furlano 5]

Hey ! I guess I should do a little introduction for anyone who reads this post. 

My name is Dave, I've been trading for about 2 years and over the past few months started to gain some traction. I've been through every educational program you can image and lost in the neighborhood of 30k to the market which seems reasonable considering my journey. The tides are turning now as I am implementing stuff that is long overdue. One of them being Journaling and the other Backtesting. You simply don't realize the importance of these two items until you start doing them religiously.....why you ask ?

1- Trading is result oriented, you win, you assume you did right, you lose you assume you did well. 

2-You win, you always wish you won more, you lose, you always wish you lost less. 

3-How do you know what you're good at if you don't journal and backtest ?....You don't and likely won't stay liquid for long enough to find out. 

4-I could go on forever so I'll leave it at 3.

 

How I Journal

I use a program called notion which is free. I use the web based version and it works perfectly fine. I track every single trade I take with pictures of the charts and my playbook included. At the end of each day I write "Daily Note" on each day. These notes include emotions, how I felt during the, market conditions, executions...whatever you want to track. (I will post examples below.) 

Using notion track things like Setup, time of day, setup rating, direciton, PNL in R's, Trade to remember, Potential PNL in R's. Below is an example of what my journal looks like.

 

The journal entries may seem cumbersome and confusing but it is very straight forward and simple, this is why I use notion. 

You will see on the far right I have "PNL and "AON Potential", by going through the trades I can look at the charts and determine things like, what was my actual R profit and what was the potential....so once ive determined this for every trade in my journal....i simply go back and run some numbers....In this case I had a sample of 44 trades (we will use this as an example) I determined the information below...

My results were-

-1R on 21 trades 

2R on 23 trades-----------------52%-----If i traded 2R AON I would be +25R over these 44 trades. (23 2R trades x 2 = 46 - 21 1R loses = +25R (Minus commssions))

3R on 14 trades------------------32%-----+12R

4R on 13 trades------------------30%----+21R

+4R on 9 trades-----------------20%

Keep in mind that this sample size is small. Ive run larger samples to get more accurate information. 

 

The next backtest I ran from my notion journal was a backtest on partialing. The backtest looked something like this

 

1- If i partial 50%@2:1.....50% of remaining shares at 3:1.......Remainder @ 4:1 I would have made.......+21.75R

2- If i partial 25%@2:1.....50% of remaining shares at 3:1.....Remainder @ 4:1 I would have made........+22.3R

3-If i partial 75%@2:1......50% of remaining shares at 3:1......Remainder @ 4:1 I would have made........+23.2R

 

**According to all of the backtests of run everything looks great and as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter what I do or how I do it I am making money....I knew that wasn't the case.

 

I ran another test for the above instances....

 

**In the case of instance (1-above) if I never get 4R and stop out even after 2:1 I make +2R over 44 trades.......If I never get 4R and stop out even after 3R I make +8R over 44 trades

 

**In the case of instance (2-above) if I never get 4R and stop out even after 2:1 I am -9.5R !!!!......If I never get 4R and stop out even after 3R I make 3.7R over 44 trades. 

 

**In the case of instance (3-above) if we never get 4R and stop out even after 2:1 I make +13.5R over 44 trades......If i never get 4R and stop out even after 3R I make +18.7R.

 

Note- There are going to be some other variables....It really just depends on your style of trading. I realized that the way I had been trading for the longest time which was in fact the LEAST profitable way to trade for me which was Option 2 ! I am currently testing some of the more profitable approaches to see what fits my style the most. I am focusing on the 2:1 AON and 4:1 AON as well as the Option 3 for partials. 

 

Guys, I hope this helps a little bit and I hope I didnt ramble too much. Please feel free to blow this thread up with questions and I will do my best to answer them. I can also send more photos and examples out of my journal or the program I use. Thanks for your interest and see you guys on the charts !

 

          Thanks ! 

                  "Lano"

 

 

 

 

[Yardley 6]

@David Furlanodo you mind sharing your notion journal template?

Edited October 20, 2019 by Yardley

[David Furlano 5]

Hey Yardly,

 

    I’m not exactly sure how to share it through notion but I can put step by step instructions with pictures together to get you setup if that works ? 

 

     Thanks ! 

[Yardley 6]

awesome, that will work! Thanks a lot.

[David Furlano 5]

When you are in your journal, make sure you select this button and select table view.

Create as money columns as you would like this with + symbol. Once you've created them, make sure you click the column, rename it and select "Multi-Select"

When you open up a new row you get this screen. This is where you populate your photos and your columns. In order to add items to each column

you click the text box, type in whatever you need "Short" then click the drop down menu where it says "Short" and that item will be saved for furture use.

You can change the colors of these items also but clicking the 3 dots in the drop down menu.

 

Drag and drop to upload photos. Everything else should be pretty straight forward. Let me know if this help or if you need some more help with it. 

 

        Thank you !

[Sweden 2]

Wow. i would love to learn from you. would you like to share your best setup with me