How to Review Your Trades: A Weekly System That Improves Performance

Most traders “review” their trades by looking at P&L. That’s not a review — it’s a scoreboard check. A real trade review is a structured process that surfaces the specific behaviours producing your results, so you can reinforce what’s working and fix what isn’t.

Done consistently, a weekly trade review is the highest-leverage activity available to an improving trader. Here’s how to do it properly.

The daily review (10–15 minutes)

The daily review happens after every session, while the trades are fresh. You’re not doing deep analysis here — you’re capturing context before you forget it.

For each trade, record:

• Setup name — which playbook setup was this?
• Did I follow my entry criteria? — yes/no, and if no, what did I actually enter on?
• Execution quality — did I enter and exit at the right levels, or did I hesitate/rush?
• Emotional state — calm, anxious, overconfident, frustrated?
• Mistake tag — if this was a losing trade, what was the mistake? Revenge trade, late entry, wrong size, moved stop, held too long?

This takes 2–3 minutes per trade. After a 4-trade session, that’s 10 minutes. Do it before you close the platform. The tags become the raw data for your weekly review.

The weekly review (30–45 minutes)

Once a week — most traders do this Sunday evening before the next week opens — you look at the full week’s data and answer these questions:

1. What was my win rate by setup?

Not your overall win rate — your win rate per setup. If you trade three setups and one has a 65% win rate while the other two are at 38%, that’s important. The two underperforming setups might be dragging down results that are actually strong in your primary setup.

2. What was my rule adherence?

Of the trades you took, what percentage followed your pre-defined entry criteria? A 70% rule adherence rate means 30% of your trades were impulsive, unplanned, or deviated from your plan. Those trades almost always have worse expected value than your planned ones.

3. What were my top two behavioural mistakes this week?

Look at your mistake tags. What appeared most often? Revenge trades? Late entries? Overtrading in the afternoon? Pick the top two and write one specific change you’ll make next week to address them. Not “I’ll be more disciplined” — a specific, actionable rule.

4. What were my best trades and why?

Identify your two best-executed trades of the week — not necessarily your biggest winners, but the ones where you followed the plan perfectly and the setup was textbook. Write down what made them right. This is how you reinforce and replicate good execution.

5. What does next week look like?

Close the review with a brief preview: what setups are most likely given the current market context? What are the key levels going into Monday? What is your focus for the week — is it reducing a specific mistake, increasing rule adherence, or testing a setup modification?

The compounding effect of consistent review

A single weekly review improves nothing. Fifty weekly reviews compound into a genuine understanding of your edge — where it exists, where it doesn’t, how it responds to different market conditions, and which behaviours are costing you money.

Traders who review consistently make the same kinds of mistakes as those who don’t. The difference is that reviewers identify their mistakes three weeks into a pattern and change course. Non-reviewers repeat the same mistakes for years, attributing their results to “bad luck” or “tough markets.”

FAQ

How long should a trade review take?

A daily review should take 10–15 minutes. A weekly review should take 30–45 minutes. If it's taking longer, you're probably reviewing too much raw data rather than looking for patterns. The goal isn't to re-examine every tick — it's to answer: what worked, what didn't, and what do I change.

Should I review winning trades or only losing ones?

Both — but for different reasons. Losing trades tell you what went wrong. Winning trades tell you what your edge actually looks like when it's working. Many traders focus only on losses and miss the opportunity to understand and repeat their best setups.

What's the most important metric to track in a trade review?

Expected value: (win rate × average winner) − (loss rate × average loser). A positive expected value means your edge is real. Track it per setup, not just overall — you may have one setup with a strong edge and two others dragging down your overall numbers.

How do I know if my trading is actually improving?

Track your rule adherence score separately from your P&L. If your rule adherence is improving (you're following your plan more consistently) but P&L is volatile, the edge is there — you're just dealing with normal variance. If both are stagnant, the system needs to change.