Which cognitive biases cost you most?

Confirmation bias, recency bias, anchoring, loss aversion — the bias list reads like a trader's loss history. Naming your personal bias profile is the beginning of defence.

Which cognitive biases cost you most? — drawdown and recovery diagram
An equity curve during a drawdown and its recovery

Which are yours?

  • the biases you catch yourself in
  • the trades they produced
  • the checks that counter them
Which cognitive biases cost you most? — risk-reward diagram
A risk-reward ratio of 1 to 2

The journal guide is the standard bias-detection tool.

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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