Trading Profit Tracker

When you run your trading through a business, like you should be by now, one needs to be able to quickly see overall profits. Most trading platforms have this setting, and your account should be able to view a year-to-date total, like below in Think or Swim from TDAmeritrade.

This is a true indication of how you are performing, overall, as a trader. Remember, the only reason we trade is to make a profit, period.

I like to see a graph of my trading progress for each account I trade. Another common method to track overall progress in trading is your net liquidity curve, as I referred to recently. This value is simply your overall account value from a specified date, usually January 1 of each year.

While this graph is fine for those who don’t make withdrawals from their accounts, those of us in a trading business use our trading profits as income to live by. When one is making weekly or monthly withdrawals (red arrows below) from an account to meet their lifestyle needs, a net liquidity curve is more likely to look like this, giving one the impression they are going nowhere fast.

I, personally, like to plot my profit curve using Excel on a weekly basis. The best part about this is you can then run a technical analysis on your own profit chart, looking at the trend and seeing where, perhaps, you may be getting euphoric, and a pullback to the mean is likely. This will help you keep your guard up and reduce risk as needed.

Notice how my profits bounced right off the inclining trendline after the reversion to the mean pullback, just like a good trending equity would perform.

Whatever format you choose, make it work for you. There is no use in hiding when you’re in business. If your profit curve is declining, you need a break. Fix something. That’s what professionals do.

Seeing your profits in graph format is very inspiring over time, and it lets you see the big picture.

Enuf said.