Monthly Trading Performance Review: What to Measure and Why

The weekly review catches habits. The monthly review shows whether you are actually improving. A month is long enough to have a meaningful number of trades, and short enough to adjust before a bad trend costs too much.

The core numbers

Track the same numbers every month in a simple table so you can see trends:

Compare months fairly

A month's P&L depends on market conditions and on how much you traded. To compare fairly:

• Look at expectancy per trade and average R rather than total dollars.
• Note the market environment: trending, choppy, high or low volatility.
• Note changes in size. A bigger month may simply be bigger positions.

Questions for the month

1. Is my expectancy improving, flat or getting worse over the last three months?
2. Which setup contributed most of the profit? Is it consistent month to month?
3. Which mistake cost the most this month, and is it the same as last month?
4. Did the change I made last month work?
5. How many days did I follow my plan?

Set next month's goals

Make goals about process, not P&L, because process is what you control:

• "Follow my plan on at least 18 of 21 trading days."
• "No trades tagged 'moved stop'."
• "Average loss no bigger than 1R."

Look at the cash flow too

Your trading P&L is not the whole story. Deposits, withdrawals, fees and interest change your account balance as well. A month-by-month view of cash flow in your trading account shows how much the account grew from trading versus from deposits.

Automate the numbers

In TradeThink, the reports show results by month, and metric history charts how each number has changed over time, so you can see at a glance whether your win rate or profit factor is trending up. Spend your review time on the questions, not on the arithmetic.