The 30-Minute Weekly Trade Review: Five Numbers to Check

Disclosure: SpiceLog is our product, so weigh the advice below with that in mind.

Most day traders never find out whether they have an edge. In Taiwan, where every trade is on record, researchers found that fewer than 1% of day traders could predictably beat the market after fees (Barber, Lee, Liu and Odean, 2014). Trading more doesn't fix it either: in a study of 66,465 US brokerage households, the most active traders earned 11.4% a year while the market returned 17.9% (Barber and Odean, 2000).

Being busy isn't the same as getting better. What helps is a short, regular look at your own numbers, before a bad habit has months to cost you.

Every review starts from the plan: where you got in, where you said you were wrong, and where you meant to get paid. Illustration, not a real trade.

Five numbers worth 30 minutes every Friday

1. Net per trade, after costs. If it's close to zero, commissions and fills decide your week.
2. Average winner vs. average loser. A high win rate means little if one loser erases three winners.
3. Time in winners vs. time in losers. Holding losers longer than winners is one of the most common leaks, and a P&L total never shows it.
4. Your longest losing streak. Check what you did during it: did size or trade count jump after the second loss?
5. Average R, and how many trades it covers. R scores every trade against what you planned to lose, so size stops hiding the picture.

Then write down one specific change to test next week, such as "no new trades after two full-R losses", and check whether you kept it.

The Stats tab in SpiceLog Reports: winners and losers side by side. Illustrative numbers from a demo workspace, not a real trader’s results.

The full routine, including what each number tells you and how to set the review up in a couple of clicks, is on the SpiceLog blog: Most day traders lose. A weekly review shows where you stand. New to R-multiples? Start with how to measure every trade in R.

For education only, not investment advice.

Written by the team behind SpiceLog.