A weekly trading review that leads to better decisions

A weekly review should be short enough to repeat and structured enough to resist hindsight. Reconcile the week, locate what mattered, compare it with the plan, and carry one test forward.

Apply this workflow in the Dojournal portfolio view and check account limits by plan before connecting a larger portfolio.

Key takeaways

• Review at a consistent time after the final session and use the same reporting boundary.
• Separate portfolio outcomes, execution evidence, and journal explanations.
• Study concentration before averages: the largest day, loss, symbol, and position size.
• Carry one measurable experiment into the next week and leave the rest stable.

Prepare a stable weekly snapshot

Choose a regular review time after your final planned session. Sync every account, confirm the week’s timezone, and note any open positions that will remain exposed. Do not compare a Monday-to-Friday report with another report that includes Sunday broker activity unless that difference is intentional.

Reconcile deposits, withdrawals, and missing data first. A review built on an incomplete account history creates confidence without evidence.

Describe the outcome in plain language

Record net closed P&L, return, maximum drawdown, trade count, average win, average loss, profit factor, and winning versus losing days. Then write two factual sentences that describe the week without judging it.

For example: ‘The portfolio finished positive, with most profit coming from Tuesday. Friday produced the deepest drawdown and the largest position size.’ This is more useful than ‘I traded well except Friday’ because it can be checked.

Find where the result was concentrated

Rank days and closed positions by contribution to P&L and drawdown. Compare symbols, sessions, accounts, strategy tags, setup grades, holding duration, and normalized size. Look at both the strongest and weakest groups.

Ask what the result would look like without the largest winning trade and without the largest losing trade. This does not mean deleting outliers; it shows whether the week was broad or dependent on a few events.

Compare execution with the recorded plan

Open the relevant trade context and day notes. Check whether planned stop levels, risk, strategy, and setup were recorded before memory changes the story. Unrecorded information should remain unknown rather than being reconstructed to fit the result.

Separate three columns in your notes: observation, possible explanation, and action. ‘Four losses occurred after the daily limit’ is an observation. ‘I was chasing’ is only supported if the journal recorded it. ‘Disable new entries after the daily limit’ is an action you can test.

Choose one experiment for next week

Select the smallest rule that addresses the most important verified pattern. Define the trigger and the evidence you will collect. Examples include recording planned risk on every setup, pausing after two losses, or trading one weak session at reduced size.

At the next review, judge whether the rule was followed before judging whether it made money. One week is usually too small to prove an edge, but it is enough to improve data quality and process consistency.

• What exactly triggers the rule?
• What will count as following it?
• Which journal field will record the evidence?
• When will the experiment be reviewed again?

Continue with a related topic in the Dojournal MetaTrader 5 article library.