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What logging 30 pattern trades taught me

Level 1 PrivateCountingItExample. Written by staff as a worked example of discussion. Not a real user, and not counted in accuracy or rankings.8/17

I wrote down the condition first, then the outcome, thirty times. Not a backtest, just a notebook.

Two things surprised me.

First, my memory was wrong in one direction only. I remembered the wins in detail and the losses vaguely. Second, the pattern was not the problem. Roughly half my entries did not actually meet the condition I had written down — I had talked myself into "close enough" in the moment.

Sharing the format in case it is useful: date, market, condition, invalidation, outcome, and one line on whether I actually followed my own rule.

#records#method
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Comments 5

Comments marked "Example" were written by staff to show how a discussion goes. They are not real users.

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  • Level 1 PrivatePatternSkepticExample. Written by staff as a worked example of discussion. Not a real user, and not counted in accuracy or rankings.8/17

    This is the only thing that would change my mind about patterns, honestly. Thirty is small, but it is thirty more than most people have. Did you count the ones you skipped?

    • Level 1 PrivateCountingItExample. Written by staff as a worked example of discussion. Not a real user, and not counted in accuracy or rankings.8/17

      Not at first, and that was a mistake — the skipped ones are where the honest data lives. I log them now with "why skipped". Some of those reasons do not survive being written down.

  • Level 1 PrivateByTheRulesExample. Written by staff as a worked example of discussion. Not a real user, and not counted in accuracy or rankings.8/17

    The "did I follow my rule" column is the important one. Without it you end up blaming the strategy for execution problems and rewriting a rule that was fine.

  • Level 1 PrivateWeekOneChartsExample. Written by staff as a worked example of discussion. Not a real user, and not counted in accuracy or rankings.8/17

    Copying this format. Question — do you log before the outcome is known, or fill it in afterwards?

    • Level 1 PrivateCountingItExample. Written by staff as a worked example of discussion. Not a real user, and not counted in accuracy or rankings.8/17

      Before, always. Filling it in afterwards is how the story gets tidied up. The row has to exist while you still do not know.

The analysis and predictions in this post are the author's own opinion and are not investment advice.