The Weekly Trading Review: A 30-Minute Routine That Compounds

Daily notes are where you collect information. The weekly review is where you learn from it. Thirty minutes once a week is enough, and it is often the single most valuable half hour of a trader's week.

Set a fixed time

Pick a time when markets are closed and you are not tired: Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon works for most people. Put it in your calendar. A review that happens "when I have time" does not happen.

Step 1: The numbers (5 minutes)

Start with a small, fixed set of numbers so weeks can be compared:

• Net P&L after fees
• Number of trades
• Win rate and average win vs average loss
• Profit factor
• Largest loss, and whether it was within your planned risk

Do not judge the week by P&L alone. A week of good execution with a small loss is better than a week of rule-breaking with a lucky gain. See process vs outcome.

Step 2: Break it down (10 minutes)

Look at the same numbers split by:

• Setup. Which setups made money, and which lost? A setup that has lost for six weeks running needs attention.
• Mistake tags. Add up the P&L of trades tagged with each mistake. The biggest number is your most expensive habit.
• Day of week and hour. See day-of-week performance and best trading hours.
• Plan followed vs not followed. If your journal records this, compare the average P&L of days you followed your plan with the others. The gap is usually large.

Step 3: Look at individual trades (10 minutes)

Pick your three best and three worst trades by R-multiple, not by dollars. For each, look at the chart and your notes:

• Did the best trades share a setup, a time of day or a market condition?
• Were the worst trades bad setups, or good setups that simply failed? A good setup that loses is fine. A trade that should never have been taken is the problem.

Step 4: One change (5 minutes)

Write one specific change for next week. Good changes are concrete and checkable:

• "No trades in the first five minutes after the open."
• "Maximum three trades per day."
• "Stop is set when the order is placed, never moved further away."

Add it to your pre-market checklist so you see it every day.

Keep a review log

Write the week's numbers and your one change in a single line each week. After three months you have a record of what you tried and whether it worked, which is far more useful than memory.

Make the review quick

The numbers part should take minutes, not an hour of spreadsheet work. In TradeThink, the reports page breaks results down by setup, tag, weekday, hour, month and holding time, the calendar shows each day's result, and the journal's insights compare days you followed your plan with days you did not. For the monthly version of this routine, see the monthly performance review.