Tracking trades with excel?

A

Andhesaid

Hello Everyone, I am very new to trading and I am trying to adsorb as much knowledge as I can about it. I have an account with IB and currently only trading commodity futures - corn,wheat and soya. I tried once on cattle and got burnt so staying away for now till I learn more. My question is does anyone use a specific excel template to track their trades and progress? I must admit my excel knowledge is limited and I created my own very basic version of one. I would really appreciate it if anyone has any tips they would like to share that would help or guide me better.

Thank You
 
I strongly believe you are better off making the template yourself and continue improving it as you see different needs arise. Keep losses small and let winners run. Play with small money first to learn, or papertrade, especially when trying new strategies.

There's NO simple magic formula other than keep improving what you've got. Trying to follow someone else's system keeps you from developing and understanding your own system properly. The sooner you start doing it, the sooner you may manage to take responsibility for your own trades.

Excel is very easy to learn and use, yet flexible enough for most linear/tabular relationships.

You got burnt? What did you do wrong, and what could you improve to avoid that mistake? Keeping track of these things is important too. I've got a textfile with 650+ entries in it gathered just from the past year.. Most of them implemented or somehow acknowledged.
 
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Simples said:
I strongly believe you are better off making the template yourself and continue improving it as you see different needs arise. Keep losses small and let winners run. Play with small money first to learn, or papertrade, especially when trying new strategies.

There's NO simple magic formula other than keep improving what you've got. Trying to follow someone else's system keeps you from developing and understanding your own system properly. The sooner you start doing it, the sooner you may manage to take responsibility for your own trades.

Excel is very easy to learn and use, yet flexible enough for most linear/tabular relationships.

You got burnt? What did you do wrong, and what could you improve to avoid that mistake? Keeping track of these things is important too. I've got a textfile with 650+ entries in it gathered just from the past year.. Most of them implemented or somehow acknowledged.
More...
Thanks for the reply simples, I did and still have my paper trading account. I have also begun trading mini contracts as well. I will keep my excel sheet and update it as I learn more.
 
Andhesaid said:
Hello Everyone, I am very new to trading and I am trying to adsorb as much knowledge as I can about it. I have an account with IB and currently only trading commodity futures - corn,wheat and soya. I tried once on cattle and got burnt so staying away for now till I learn more. My question is does anyone use a specific excel template to track their trades and progress? I must admit my excel knowledge is limited and I created my own very basic version of one. I would really appreciate it if anyone has any tips they would like to share that would help or guide me better.

Thank You
More...
Have you figured out why you got killed with cattle ? Learn from your failures. Don't shy away, cover them up.

I used excel to keep track of my trades, to extract some statistics. To produce analytical metrics, backtest them against simulations, monte carlos, and accumulated data. You can even backtest simple strategy with it. Price options, size bets ... Stick specific information about securities ... Extrapolate your performance...

It's a very powerful tool for a trader. You can do a lot within it. In addition that its spreadsheet format is quite user friendly. Didn't use Macro and VBA but it's easy to pick up. Don't know how it can help.

First you have to know what can improve your trading. But you ain't know it analytically (Ex Ante). It requires tinkering, trials and errors. Then discard what's fancy and keep, improve what looks useful.

If you don't have specific problem, we can't help.

See if you can integrate IB with Excel, either with an API or via RTD link, and how far you can push it.

Google : "IB" and "Excel" and "DDE"
 
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K-Pia said:
Have you figured out why you got killed with cattle ? Learn from your failures. Don't shy away, cover them up.

I used excel to keep track of my trades, to extract some statistics. To produce analytical metrics, backtest them against simulations, monte carlos, and accumulated data. You can even backtest simple strategy with it. Price options, size bets ... Stick specific information about securities ... Extrapolate your performance...

It's a very powerful tool for a trader. You can do a lot within it. In addition that its spreadsheet format is quite user friendly. Didn't use Macro and VBA but it's easy to pick up. Don't know how it can help.

First you have to know what can improve your trading. But you ain't know it analytically (Ex Ante). It requires tinkering, trials and errors. Then discard what's fancy and keep, improve what looks useful.

If you don't have specific problem, we can't help.

See if you can integrate IB with Excel, either with an API or via RTD link, and how far you can push it.

Google : "IB" and "Excel" and "DDE"
More...
Hi K-Pia thanks for all the advice I will check with IB. The cattle I was trading was a sell LE VZ I used scarr and together with some fundamental analysis I felt it was a good trade. I had 3 contracts I got first at @-0.175 then another @ 0.275 thinking it was going to turn in my favour when it hit 0.400 I got out and took the loss. I thought the worst was over and it was finally coming down so got another one @ 0.500 was out 0.650. It was my first time trading it I have learned a lesson even though I not entirely sure why its at 0.725 today.For now Im just watching it.
 
Don't know if this helps, using Excel, here is an example of what can be used: Just type in, starting under column A (Trade Number), B (Date), C (Time-of trade)/D (open-close), E (long-short), Sh/contr (shares-contracts)/...Type/Multiplier (Fut-stk-etf etc)/Commish/.

And you can add/delete columns to refine. Good luck.

TrNum /Date/ Time/ OC /LS /Ticker/ Share-Contr/ Price/ TypeMult/ Comm/ Amount/ Profit & Loss/ Notes /
 
shfly said:
Don't know if this helps, using Excel, here is an example of what can be used: Just type in, starting under column A (Trade Number), B (Date), C (Time-of trade)/D (open-close), E (long-short), Sh/contr (shares-contracts)/...Type/Multiplier (Fut-stk-etf etc)/Commish/.

And you can add/delete columns to refine. Good luck.

TrNum /Date/ Time/ OC /LS /Ticker/ Share-Contr/ Price/ TypeMult/ Comm/ Amount/ Profit & Loss/ Notes /
More...
Thank you for this shfly
 
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