Weekly and Monthly Trading Review Templates (Printable)

Printable study note: Weekly and monthly review (one page, print or PDF)

The short answer

• Weekly review: 30 minutes, same time every week. Numbers, the most expensive mistake, one change to test.
• Monthly review: 60 minutes, first weekend of the month. Totals, costs, drawdown, what’s working, and a decision about risk for next month.
• One change a week, at most. Bigger decisions only in the monthly review.

Print the forms below, or get the one-page weekly and monthly review study note with a PDF download.

Already know the method? Our lesson gold trading journal templates has the full per-trade log and a detailed weekly review table with a step-by-step method. This page is the short, printable version and adds the monthly review.

Before you review: what you need

• A complete journal for the period. If you don’t have one yet, start with how to keep a trading journal, our free trade journal tool or the journal spreadsheet.
• Your platform statement for the period: MT5 History tab and account statement.
• Your trading plan and rules card: my 10 trading rules card.

The weekly review form (30 minutes)

Print or copy. Fill it at the same time every week, for example Saturday morning.

Numbers (10 minutes)

• ☐ Trades taken: ____ (planned maximum: ____)
• ☐ Net result: ____ R and $____
• ☐ Win rate ____ %, average win ____ R, average loss ____ R
• ☐ Largest loss: ____ R (anything worse than −1.2R needs a reason)
• ☐ Rule breaks: ____ (which rules: ____)

Decisions (10 minutes)

• ☐ Best decision of the week (not best trade): ____
• ☐ Worst decision of the week: ____
• ☐ Most expensive mistake, in R: ____
• ☐ Same mistake as last week? Yes / No

Grade decisions, not outcomes: see grade your trading decisions, not your results.

Next week (10 minutes)

• ☐ One thing to keep doing: ____
• ☐ One rule to test: ____ (specific and checkable, for example “no entries in the 15 minutes before US data”)
• ☐ Risk next week: normal / reduced / paused
• ☐ Review time booked for next week: ____

The monthly review form (60 minutes)

Do it in the first few days of each month, before your first session.

1. The month in numbers (15 minutes)

• ☐ Trades: ____ Net: ____ R and $____
• ☐ Expectancy per trade: ____ R (net R ÷ trades)
• ☐ Maximum drawdown this month: ____ %
• ☐ Costs: spread and commission $, swaps $, running costs $____
• ☐ Costs as % of account: ____ %
• ☐ Deposits $, withdrawals $

2. Where it came from (15 minutes)

• ☐ Result by setup: ____
• ☐ Result by session: ____
• ☐ Result on big-news days vs normal days: ____
• ☐ Cost of rule breaks in R: ____. Net without them: ____ R

3. Me (10 minutes)

• ☐ Weeks I followed my rules fully: ____ of ____
• ☐ Did any feeling repeat? (fear, FOMO, boredom, revenge, overconfidence): ____
• ☐ Sleep and routine OK? Yes / No (see stress, sleep and trading at night)

4. Decisions (20 minutes)

• ☐ Keep, change or drop each setup: ____
• ☐ Risk next month: same / lower / pause (raise only after several good months and good behaviour)
• ☐ Pay myself? ____ % of profit (see withdrawing trading profits)
• ☐ Plan updated and dated: Yes / No
• ☐ Statement saved for my records: Yes / No (see tax on trading profits)

A worked month (example numbers, checked by script)

A trader risking $25 per trade (1R = $25) fills in four weekly reviews:

Monthly numbers:

• Net: +4.6R, which is $115 at $25 per R.
• Expectancy: 4.6 ÷ 52 = about +0.088R per trade. Positive, but thin.
• Rule breaks cost −4.1R. Without them, the month would have been +8.7R.

What the review decides:

• The method isn’t the main problem; the rule breaks are. Nearly half of the possible result was lost to them.
• Week 2 was the losing week. The journal shows most breaks came after the first loss of a day.
• One change: after the first loss of a day, a 30-minute break before the next trade (see revenge trading).
• Risk next month: same. Not raised, because behaviour wasn’t good enough yet.

Notice what didn’t happen: no new strategy, no bigger size, no new indicator. The review found the real leak.

Running the weekly review in 30 minutes

A timer helps. One way to split the time:

• Minutes 0–5: open your journal and statement side by side. Check every trade is in the journal.
• Minutes 5–10: fill in the numbers block. No opinions yet, just counting.
• Minutes 10–20: read every trade where you broke a rule or got a poor execution grade. Find the most expensive mistake in R.
• Minutes 20–25: look for anything that repeated for the third week in a row. One week is noise; three weeks is a pattern worth a rule.
• Minutes 25–30: write the one change, set next week’s risk, and book the next review.

Keep every completed form in one folder, by date. After three months you’ll have twelve weekly forms and three monthly ones, and that small stack is the most honest picture of your trading you’ll ever get. It’s also exactly what you need for trading as a business and for your tax records.

Why the weekly and monthly reviews are different

Small weekly samples are noisy. A great week or a bad week tells you little about your method. Monthly totals, and especially several months together, tell you more. See is my strategy really working?

Common review mistakes

• Reviewing only after losing weeks. Winning weeks hide mistakes too.
• Changing three rules at once. You won’t know which one worked.
• Judging by money, not R. If your size changed, dollar results aren’t comparable.
• Skipping costs. A month that looks positive can be flat after swaps and commissions.
• No decision at the end. Every review should end with a written next step, even if it’s “change nothing”.

Where next

You’re in stage 10 of the Gold Trader’s Journey. Print the one-page review note, and read trading as a business for the routine around it.

Educational content only, not financial advice. Example numbers are labelled and checked by script. Trading gold with leverage carries a high risk of loss.

Frequently asked questions