Audit Hack to Improve Performance

Becoming Better at Spotting Key Opportunities

Monthly Audit

One habit which can be a game changer is to change your trades audit frequency. Most traders look at the journal each week, make some notes, maybe adjust the plan a bit, and wait for the open on Monday.

He’s something different to try:

At the end of the month ask yourself the following question: What were the best trading opportunities this month and how did I do?

This is a really neat way of making sure you aren’t under capitalising on moves you really should be nailing.

Let’s explore:

Imagine you are a Forex trader, covering the major pairs. Your audit might say:

One of the top opportunities in June was trading the USDJPY breakout. Clean break, followed by a clean flag.

If you are an intraday trader it might have been the big move after CPI.

If equities are your thing, then your audit might highlight the big short squeeze in Carvana as a key opportunity for June.

You get the idea.

Here’s The Process

  1. Identify the biggest opportunities in your focus area.
  2. Auditing your performance (or not) in those trades.
  3. Highlight areas on the chart that were reasonable entries.
  4. Adjust your plan so you can capitalise on these better next month.

Let’s go a bit deeper.

Imagine you were the FX trader above, reviewing the major pairs and that USDJPY breakout multiday bid was a top trade for you. If you didn’t trade it, a question you need to ask is.

“What do I need to look for to make sure I’m not missing these potential big moves”

That could be ensuring you are screening correctly.

If you did trade it but didn’t capitalise as much as you could, the question is:

“How could I have traded that better”

The answer may be: not snatching at profits, being more aggressive, or spotting the entry sooner.

The trick here is to deep dive into the biggest opportunities, print the charts, your trade blotter, and do an in-depth review.

Then the next month you implement the ideas and tactics that enable you to make more from these trades.

And so on…

If you do this audit every month, you’ll be way better at spotting and trading the key opportunities for the month.

Try it for last month.