Trading journals are a part of the markets that can be very beneficial, especially to those people who are beginners in trading. Max ("Maximus" in the chat room) shares with us just how his trading journal has been preparing him to go live with real money. We discuss many other interesting topics too, but the part that really stuck out in my mind was how organized he is in tracking all his trades. Whether you're a new trader or a veteran, I'm confident you can garner at least a few bits tips or tricks from our talk. Notes: Max’s introduction to the day trading the market was spurred by Clay’s 10k calorie challenge. This led Max to spark up a conversation with this resident advisor to which he found out that he was day trading the market in the morning before classes. While Max did the right thing by paper trading, he did not treat it seriously by any means. He treated it like a video game by not utilizing realistic figures that he would be using when he went live. Now that Max has gotten his feet wet trading speculative biotechs and technology companies along with countless hours of working on his craft, he now is involved in a co-op program though his school to trade full time for 6 months with advisors from JP Morgan and others in the finance industry. Max brings up a great point about how everyone trades differently and while his resident advisor trades successfully one way, it doesn’t particularly jive with him. There are many ways to make money in the market and everyone has to find what spot they fit best. Data is extremely important for Max. He strongly suggests that everyone use detailed journaling techniques to keep track of progress and spot potential trading issues that will impact long term profitability. There’s no argument or justifications to foolishness when you have the data logged and presented in front of you. Quotes: “I got some good information. I thought I knew what I was doing but I was really just Googling stuff.” tweet this quote “I don’t want to admit how many hours I stared at charts from January through June. I thought that would fix me.” tweet this quote “Journaling as a beginner gives you power to recognize your mess ups. I like to have a guideline of how I’ve been performing.” tweet this quote “Looking back I would tell myself that ‘I don’t know anything.’ Work a little bit smarter but just as hard.” tweet this quote Links: Video: 10,000 Calorie Challenge