An online trading journal is like a CSI team picking apart your trading crime scene. When maintained and reviewed it gets easy to spot what works and what doesn’t.

Even more important are the correlations you can spot as to reasons why trading results fail to live up to expectations. For example a trading journal points to a string of bad trades – all made during the 2 second hour of trading. The investigation focuses easily on some diagnostic questions: What’s happening in the second hour? What are the emotions felt as the market attempts to set a pattern for the day? When’s the mid-morning bathroom break? All sort of questions can point to corrective measures including the conclusion to simply not trade and call it a personal trading ‘dead zone’.

The TraderInterviews.com recently chatted with Dave Mabe, the founder of the online trading journal site, StockTickr.com.

In the conversation with Tim Bourquin Dave mentions several tools he uses to make the trades that feeds his trading journal. They include: TraderMike, the Chairman, and High Chart Patterns, and oh hey, Trade-Ideas too.

The 20 minute conversation provides the white gloves and swabs you’ll need to track down your trading plan killers.

Trader Profile: Dave Mabe of StockTickr.com