Reviewing your trades to improve
Day 24 of 26 · 10 min read · By DT Terminal
A review turns a pile of trades into one thing to change. This lesson covers what to record on every trade, the daily and weekly review, grading your execution apart from the result, finding leaks by grouping your trades, and turning one finding into one rule you can check.
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Worked examples, the quiz and the interactive tools are in the app. Free account.
What to record on every trade
A review is only as good as what was written at the time. Memory edits itself: a loser becomes bad luck and a winner becomes skill. So record every trade the same way, before you know how it ends.
| What to record | What it looks like | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Its name: "pullback to the H1 level" | Lets you group trades by setup later |
| Plan | Entry, stop, target and size, before the click | Shows if you took the trade you planned |
| Screenshots | One before the entry, one after the close | What you saw, and what price did next |
| Emotion | One word: calm, rushed, frustrated | Honest before the outcome, an excuse after it |
| Rules | Each rule of the plan, followed or not | Tells a bad trade from a bad result |
| Result in R | +2.0R or −1.0R | Compares trades of any size |
R is the amount you risked (Day 4): risk $100, make $200, and the trade is +2.0R on any account size.
Sync the account and the facts arrive as your broker reported them. You add what only you know: the setup tag, the screenshots, the rule checklist, and how you felt before you knew the outcome.
Why sync, and what you add
The facts should never be typed by hand. Sync the account and the prices, size, times, fees and P&L arrive as your broker reported them, which is what makes the record proof rather than a story. You add the setup as a tag, the screenshots, the rule checklist, your reflection, and a quick note of how you felt before you knew the outcome.
Plan, emotion and screenshot first; the review comes later.
Reviewing one trade on the chart
Review the trade in a fixed order, so a good result cannot hurry you past a bad decision. One EURUSD long:
DT Terminal ChartsEURUSD · H1Reviewed- Was it my setup? A pullback after the rally. Yes.
- Was the plan set first? Entry 1.08500, stop 1.08300 below the swing low at 1.08354, target 1.08900 at 2R. Yes.
- Did I follow it? Stop never moved, closed at the target for +2.0R.
- How far against me? −0.5R at worst.
- Where did it go after? On to +3.1R, then back.
- Repeat or change? Repeat it. One trade that ran further is no reason to move every target.
Review a trade from the Trade Log
Let a sample decide
The stop had room. One trade that ran further is a question to answer over 20 or more trades, not a reason to move every target.
Note what price did after the exit and let a sample decide. Measure how far your closed trades went against you and how much of each winning move you kept, so "I exit too early" becomes a number.
Unreviewed closed trades carry a Needs Review badge. Click the badge (or Review trade in the trade's details) and walk the trade through the six questions. Answering marks the trade reviewed.
The daily review
Ten minutes after each session, while it is fresh: a check that the record is complete and honest.
- Every trade is in, with its after screenshot.
- The rule checklist is ticked on every trade, honestly.
- Each trade has its one-word emotion and a one-line note.
- One line for the day: what you would repeat, and what you would not.
Keep it as one journal entry a day: a plan, notes during the session and a reflection after, next to the day's trades and high-impact events.
Grade the execution, not the outcome
One result is mostly noise (Day 9). So grade two things apart: did you follow the plan, and did it make money? Every trade lands in one of four boxes.
- Earned win and good loss. The plan, working. Nothing to fix.
- Bad win. The riskiest box: you were paid for breaking a rule, and paid habits repeat.
- Bad loss. Write down the rule you broke.
Worked example
Example 01: A good loss and a bad win on the same day
The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.
The example in full, and counting rule breaks
Both trades were on Thursday. Trade 8 was stopped out beyond the swing low. Trade 9 broke the plan's news rule (see Day 6). By the money, trade 9 was better. By the plan, trade 8 is a good loss that needs nothing, and trade 9 is a bad win: the review writes down the rule it broke, so a habit that paid once is not mistaken for a skill.
A good trade can lose and a bad one can win; what you control is the execution. Over a sample, the rules carry the edge. A trade that broke them taught the wrong lesson, even when it made money.
Give each strategy a short rulebook to tick on every trade, and count each trade you took with a critical rule unticked, so rule breaks become a number. For a bad loss, writing down the rule you broke lets the review find it again.
The weekly review: a few numbers and one change
Once a week, step back from single trades to the set. The point is one decision, not a report:
| Number | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Net result in R | Did the week make or lose, whatever the size |
| Win rate | With the average win and loss, is the edge showing up |
| Average win and loss | Are winners cut short or losers stretched |
| Expectancy | The average R a trade, all three in one |
| Trades by the plan | The one number you fully control |
| Off-plan R | What breaking the plan made or cost |
Worked example
Example 02: One week, twelve trades
The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.
The weekly review template
Split by the plan, the story is clearer. Two of the off-plan trades were the same mistake: a repeated pattern, so it is the one change. One rule, tested over enough trades, gives a readable result.
Here is the review as a template: the same five headings every week, so weeks compare.
Weekly review template
- 01
The numbers
- Trades taken, and the net result in R
- Win rate, average win and average loss in R
- Trades that followed the plan, out of the total
- 02
The grades
- How many earned wins, good losses, bad wins and bad losses
- The off-plan trades: what they cost or made, in R
- 03
The leak
- Grouped by setup, session, day and emotion, which group lost the most
- Is it big enough to trust, or one to watch?
- 04
One thing to keep
- The trade you would take again exactly as you did
- 05
One thing to change
- The one rule you will add or tighten next week, written so a yes or no answers it
Take the numbers from the record, not from memory: net P/L, win rate, expectancy, results in R and P/L by weekday.
Find leaks by grouping your trades
A leak is a group of trades that loses while the rest makes money. Sort trades by one thing at a time to find it: setup, session (Day 5), weekday or emotion.
Group this sample month of 30 trades (+7.0R) four ways.
Interactive tool
Leak finder
This interactive tool runs in the app, with your own numbers.
The leaks overlap: 7 of the 9 Asian trades were breakouts, and 7 of the 10 breakouts were logged as rushed. One habit underneath: rushing into breakouts before London opens. Nine or ten trades is a hint, not proof: a question to test, not a verdict.
Find your own leak in Analytics
Reading the groups
You cannot see a leak trade by trade. Four groupings pointed at one habit here, which is why you look at more than one grouping before you name the leak, as real leaks overlap.
The finder will not call a group under 5 trades a leak at all, and the ones it does call are a question to test, not a verdict.
Tags make this possible. Tag each trade with its setup and emotion, then filter by one tag at a time and split the results by hour and weekday: the Time tab in Analytics shows day of week and hour. Write down the one group that lost the most, and how many trades it holds.
Turn one finding into one rule
A finding is not a fix. "I lose on Asian breakouts" changes nothing until it is a rule you check on every trade. A rule that works is:
- Specific. It names the setup, the session or the condition.
- Checkable. A yes or no answers it on every trade.
- Written before the session. In the plan, not in your head.
- Alone. One new rule at a time.
| Finding | A rule you cannot check | A rule you can |
|---|---|---|
| Asian session breakouts lose | "Be careful in Asia" | No breakout entries before the London open |
| Re-entries straight after a loss lose | "Do not revenge trade" | No new trade for 30 minutes after a loss |
| Entries logged as rushed lose | "Be more patient" | Enter only on a candle close at your level, never mid-candle |
Test it over the next 20 trades, or replay the conditions in the backtester. Then group again: keep the rule if the leak closed, drop it if not.
Keeping the rule honest
A checkable rule is answered by a yes or no on every trade, after the fact, even on a trade you closed last week. One new rule at a time lets you tell what it did. Tick it on each of those trades, and write it into your plan, so it is asked on every trade and a broken one is counted.
A record reviewed like this is also what a prop firm challenge rewards: rules followed under pressure, on trades nobody can edit. Day 25 picks up from there.
Check yourself
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