Mindset ยท the two-grade journal
Execution grade. A tick or a cross next to every trade: did I follow the plan, regardless of what the trade paid? It sits beside the setup grade (A, B or C) and ignores the money entirely. It is the only column in my journal that has ever made me a better trader, and the one I avoided for twenty years.
Success Psychology · Lesson 1
Every trade in my journal has two grades. The first is the setup grade, A, B, or C. I know it when I enter, and I grade it again in the journal after the session. The second is the execution grade: a tick if I followed the plan, a cross if I didn’t. For twenty years I only tracked the third thing, the money, and the money taught me almost nothing. This page is about why the second column is the one that made me a better trader, and how I use it.
Outcome is noise, execution is signal
A single trade’s result is mostly randomness dressed up as feedback. You can do everything right and lose. You can chase a late entry, get lucky, and book the best trade of the week. If you grade yourself on outcomes you will slowly train yourself to do whatever last worked, which in a market is a recipe for doing the wrong thing with confidence.
Execution is different. Whether you waited for the condition, named the setup, graded it honestly, entered where the plan said, and exited where the plan said: those are all things you controlled, and they’re the only things that compound. A month of ticks with a flat P&L is a good month. A month of crosses with a green P&L is a warning.
When the A+ fails
I know a setup’s grade when I take it, and that’s where the decisions come in, the discretionary part nobody can automate for you. Should I enter this trade even though it’s only a C? Then the journal asks the harder questions. Why did my A+ trade fail? And why did I take a bigger loss than usual on it, just because it was an A+? Our egos don’t like to be wrong.
An A+ that fails is still an A+ if I executed it. A loss bigger than my plan allows is a cross, whatever the grade said.
The trade that isn’t a setup
My grading stops at C. Anything that isn’t at least a C setup doesn’t get a lower letter: it wasn’t a setup at all. When I started marking those honestly, I found out most of my losses came from trades that never should have had a setup name attached. They were boredom, revenge, or a chart that looked like something. Writing them down as ‘not a setup’ took away their disguise.
The question I ask before every entry now: if this loses, will I be able to write down which setup it was and why the grade was what it was? If the honest answer is no, it isn’t a setup, and I’m not taking it.
Blind spots
I wrote about scotomas, the blind spots we carry onto a chart, in an earlier lesson. The execution column is the only instrument I’ve found that makes them visible. You don’t see your own bias while you’re trading. You see it three weeks later, when the crosses in the journal cluster around the same hour, the same setup, or the same mood, and the pattern is too consistent to be chance.
The hour after the max loss
The most expensive hour in trading is the one after you hit your daily stop. Every instinct says the next trade is the one that gets it back. So the rule in my plan isn’t “stop trading.” It’s “close the platform.” The physical act matters. Chart mark-ups and simulator drills are allowed because they keep the hands busy and the ego out of the order entry. It sounds childish. It has saved accounts.
Grading the week
Daily grades roll into a weekly one, across a handful of categories that are about behaviour rather than money: preparation, patience, adherence, risk, review. In my group the weekly grade gets posted and read by people who will notice if it slips. On your own it should still be written, because the act of grading yourself against a standard is most of what makes the standard real.
I share the short version of these ideas on Instagram as @successpsychology. The long version lives here.
Questions people ask
Why grade a trade twice?
Because the outcome of one trade is mostly noise and the execution is entirely yours. The setup grade says what the market offered; the execution grade says whether you did what you said you would.
What happens after a max-loss night?
The platform closes, and the hour after is for the journal, not the chart. The grade for that hour is the honest one: did I stop, or did I find a reason not to?
What is a trade that isn’t a setup?
Anything below a C does not get a lower letter. It was not a setup at all, and writing it down as ‘not a setup’ takes away its disguise. Most of my losses used to live there.
Trade the session your life actually allows.
The night session is a complete market. Learn how it moves, watch me trade it live, read the write-up the next morning, and if you want people who trade the same hours, there is a room for that.
Disclosure. Midnight Futures is an educational site written by Scott West, a private trader. Nothing here is financial advice, and trading futures carries a substantial risk of loss. Some links to the tools and prop firms I use are affiliate links: if you buy through them I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Full disclosure · Risk disclaimer