The narrative fallacy: what story are you telling about your trading?

The mind turns random outcomes into stories: "I lost because the market hates me", "I won because I'm finally good". The stories feel explanatory and are mostly invented.

The narrative fallacy: what story are you telling about your trading? — drawdown and recovery diagram
An equity curve during a drawdown and its recovery

What's your story?

  • the narrative you tell about your results
  • what it's protecting
  • what the data actually says
The narrative fallacy: what story are you telling about your trading? — risk-reward diagram
A risk-reward ratio of 1 to 2

The journal guide replaces narrative with record.

Background: How to keep a trading journal that actually improves your trading

A journal turns a pile of trades into evidence. What to record, the numbers worth calculating and a weekly review routine that takes less than an hour.

What should a trading journal include?

For each trade: the pair, direction, size, entry, stop, target, risk, the reason for the trade, how you felt, the result in money and in R, whether you followed your plan, and chart screenshots.

How do I calculate expectancy?

Multiply your win rate by your average win, then subtract your loss rate multiplied by your average loss. Measured in R, a positive result means the approach has made money per trade on average.

Read the full guide

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