The New Sell and Sell Short: How to Take Profits, Cut Losses, and Benefit from Price Declines, Expanded Second Edition

TRADER’S SPREADSHEET—BASIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Whenever I talk with traders, I am amazed how few maintain records of their trades in spreadsheets. Many rely on their brokers, but those statements do not provide the necessary level of detail. This is why I recommend using your own spreadsheet. My company, www.elder.com, offers the basic spreadsheet shown on the next page at no charge, as a public service to traders. You can e-mail us at [e-mail] and ask for the template (Figure 3.1).

You do not need to become a spreadsheet expert, but a basic ability to manipulate numbers will give you a much greater degree of control over your trading. If beginners took one tenth of the time they spend looking at indicators and invested that time in learning basic Excel, their payoff would be much greater.

A basic spreadsheet takes just a minute to update after every trade. In my own spreadsheet I have a tab for each of my accounts and a summary tab where I record the value of all accounts on a weekly basis to track my equity curve.

Figure 3.1 shows the headings as well as a few lines from my spreadsheet. The text explains the meaning of every column.

Figure 3.1 A Basic Record-Keeping Spreadsheet