Being retrospective means to take a look back at events that already have taken place.
Once you’ve finished trading, it might be tempting to call up yo homies to hit up happy hour, kick back shots of Patrón, and splurge on bottles of Dom Pérignon, but it’s crucial that you review how your trade went, win or lose.
You want to look back over the whole process to understand what you did right and wrong. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Use the answers to refine your position size, entry level, and order placement going forward.
Based on your answers, you’ll learn what role your emotions may have played and how disciplined a trader you are.
While you may want to vent your thoughts, emotions, and feeling to yo homies, it’s better to write them down here.
You are probably boring them to death anyway. They don’t want to hear your whining.
This is your opportunity for trader self-improvement.
Do not just write vague confessions like “I need to hold my winners longer” or “I need to cut my losses quicker” or “I need to be more disciplined”. These are totally useless by themselves.
Identify SPECIFIC steps that you will take to improve.
There are no right or wrong answers in this review process.
Just be as honest with yourself as you can be.
And be SPECIFIC.
Otherwise, you won’t improve as a forex trader.
DO NOT TAKE THIS QUESTION LIGHTLY.
If you are not routinely executing trades according to your plan, then you either have a serious problem with self‐discipline or there is a problem with your Trading Plan .
Either way, you have a BIG problem that needs to be fixed yesterday!