Weekly trading review: a repeatable checklist

Logging trades is half the job; the other half is reading them back on a schedule. This checklist takes about forty-five minutes once a week and ends with one concrete change, not a list of resolutions.

Why weekly, and when exactly

A daily review is too close to the trades: one loss dominates the picture and the conclusions are mostly mood. A monthly review is too far: by the time you notice that a habit cost you, it has cost you for four weeks. Weekly sits in between. It gives enough trades to see patterns forming and is short enough to correct course while the memories are still usable. Pick a fixed slot outside market hours, for example Saturday morning, and treat it like an appointment. Review with the markets closed and the platform off, so the session does not turn into planning next week's trades. Keep the same order every time. A checklist matters less for its content than for the fact that it removes the decision of where to look, which is exactly where traders tend to look away from the uncomfortable part.

Step 1: make sure the data is complete

Before any analysis, check that the week is fully in the journal. Compare the trade count with your broker statement; a missing trade is almost always a bad one, and its absence makes everything that follows look better than it was. Then check that every trade has its result in R, a model, a session, the followed plan field and at least an entry screenshot. Fill gaps now, while you still remember. This step is dull and takes ten minutes, but it decides whether the rest of the review describes your real trading or an edited version of it. If you trade several accounts, check each one separately, especially a prop account with a daily drawdown limit, where one unlogged trade can explain a breach you otherwise cannot account for.

Step 2: read the numbers in R

Look at a small set of numbers, all in R: number of trades, net result, win rate, average winner, average loser, expectancy and the deepest drawdown within the week. A worked example: twelve trades, five winners averaging +2.0R and seven losers totalling -6.6R, so the week is +3.4R, win rate 42% and expectancy about +0.28R per trade. Then compare these figures not with last week alone but with your rolling average over the past four to eight weeks. A single week is a small sample, and a good or bad one says little by itself. What deserves attention is a number that drifts week after week: the average loser creeping from 1R toward 1.3R, or the trade count rising while expectancy falls. Those trends usually point to behaviour, not market conditions.

Step 3: split the week by model and session

The total tells you how the week went; the split tells you why. Break the result down by model, by session, by instrument and by day of the week. Continuing the example: seven London trades made +4.1R, while five New York trades lost 0.7R. That is too few trades to drop New York, but it is enough to write down and watch. The same applies to models: if one idea produced most of the gain and another only added losses, note it and check whether the pattern holds over the coming weeks. A calendar view of daily results adds one more angle, because clusters of losses on the same weekday, or right after a large win, are easy to miss in a list. Look for concentration: results in trading are rarely spread evenly.

Step 4: price your mistakes

Now filter for trades where you answered 'no' to following the plan, and sum them. In the example, three rule-breaking trades, an early entry, a moved stop and an oversized position, together cost -2.6R. Without them the other nine trades made +6.0R instead of +3.4R. That figure is the most useful single number in the review, because it measures what discipline cost you this week in the same units as everything else. Track it over time as a share of trades and as R lost. Also check mistake tags: the same tag appearing three weeks in a row is no longer an accident, it is part of how you trade. Be strict with the definition of a mistake. A loss that followed the plan is not a mistake; it is the cost of running the strategy.

Step 5: replay the charts

Open the screenshots of your two or three best and two or three worst trades and look at the entry chart before the exit chart. For each one ask whether the entry matched the model as defined, whether the stop was where the rules put it, and whether the exit was planned or improvised. Good outcomes deserve the same scrutiny as bad ones: a winning trade that broke the rules teaches the wrong lesson if it goes unexamined. If you keep notes on trades you saw but did not take, review those as well, since hesitation on valid signals is as costly as impulsive entries and never shows up in the P/L. Write one sentence per trade. The aim is not to relive the week but to collect evidence for the final step.

Step 6: choose one change for next week

End with exactly one change, written as a rule you can check with a yes or no, for example 'no new entries after two losses in a day' or 'stop moves only to breakeven and only after 1R'. One rule is enough, because several changes at once make it impossible to tell which one helped. Write it where you will see it before trading, and start next week's review by checking whether you kept it and what the trades under it returned. In Haunted, the scorecard, the calendar heatmap and the splits by session, pair, model and account cover most of steps two and three, and a read-only share link lets a mentor or trading partner look at the same week without a spreadsheet passed back and forth.

How long should a weekly trading review take?

Around thirty to sixty minutes is usually enough for an active trader. If it takes much longer, the journal is probably incomplete and the time goes into reconstructing trades. If it takes ten minutes, you are likely only looking at the total rather than the splits and the mistakes.

What should I review in a week with no trades?

Review why there were none. If the market offered nothing that fit your models, that is discipline and worth noting. If valid signals appeared and you hesitated, look at those charts and write down what stopped you. Use the time to review the previous month as a whole.

Should I review a losing week differently?

No, and that is the point of a fixed checklist. Run the same steps in the same order. A losing week that followed the plan may just be variance, while a winning week built on rule breaks can be the more worrying one. The checklist keeps the mood of the week out of the conclusions.

Is it worth reviewing trades with someone else?

Often yes. Another trader will spot rule breaks you have learned to rationalise. Share the journal rather than a summary, so they see the screenshots and notes, not only the result. A read-only link that you can revoke is a convenient way to do this.