How to grade your trading week: a weekly review scorecard
A simple weekly scorecard for traders: six subjects (results, risk, discipline, emotions, journaling and focus), how to score each one, and how to turn your week into one letter grade.
Most traders review their week by looking at one number: the P&L. That tells you what happened, not whether you traded well. A grade does. Here's a simple scorecard you can fill in every weekend in about 15 minutes: six subjects, what each one measures, and how to turn the week into one letter.
Why grade instead of just review
A review is a story you tell yourself, and stories bend toward how the week felt. A grade forces numbers: how many days you broke a rule, how big your worst loss was next to your normal one, what you did after two losses. Same questions every week, so one week can be compared with the next. If you don't have a review routine yet, start with the weekly review routine; this scorecard is its last step.
The six subjects
| Subject | What it measures | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Results | Net P&L after fees and profit factor | 15% |
| Risk control | Your biggest losses next to your typical loss | 25% |
| Discipline | Days you followed every rule, trades tagged as mistakes | 20% |
| Emotional control | Trades after 2 losses in a day, days emotions took over | 20% |
| Journaling | Setups tagged, morning prep and evening reflection done | 10% |
| Focus | Whether the markets besides your best one make or lose money | 10% |
Results gets the smallest weight on purpose. One week's P&L is mostly noise; the way you traded is what repeats next week. More on that in process vs. outcome.
How to score each subject
- Results: use profit factor (total won ÷ total lost). 2.5 or more is an A+, 2 an A−, 1.5 a B, 1.2 a C+ and break-even a C−. A losing week tops out at a D, however close it was.
- Risk control: line up your losses and take the middle one: that's your typical loss. Count the losses more than 1.5× bigger. Zero is an A. One that's just over 1.5× costs you about a letter; one at 4× your typical loss drops you to around a C+.
- Discipline: of the days you traded, on how many did you follow every rule? 5 of 5 is an A, 4 of 5 a B+, 3 of 5 a C+. Every trade you had to tag as a mistake pulls it lower.
- Emotional control: count the trades you took after already losing twice that day. Zero is an A. Each one costs a few points, and if together they lost more than one typical loss, it drops about another letter.
- Journaling: did you tag a setup on every trade, write your plan before the open and reflect after the close? All three, every day, is an A.
- Focus: if you traded more than one market, did the others make money? A second market that loses while your main one wins is the cheapest grade to fix: stop trading it.
The overall grade, and the one rule that matters
Weigh the six grades by the percentages above. Then apply one cap: the overall grade can't be more than a few points above your grade without Results. A week where you made money while breaking rules and trading on after losses isn't a B week. It's a C with good luck attached.
A worked example
Say you took 18 trades and made +$864 with a profit factor of 1.6. Your typical loss was $120, but one loss was $480, 4× typical. You followed all your rules on 3 of 5 days and tagged 2 trades as mistakes. On Wednesday, after two losses, you took 3 more trades and lost another $300.
| Subject | Grade | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Results | B | Profit factor 1.6 |
| Risk control | C+ | One loss 4× typical |
| Discipline | C− | Rules on 3 of 5 days, 2 mistake trades |
| Emotional control | D+ | 3 trades after 2 losses, −$300 |
| Journaling | B | Most trades tagged, prep most days |
| Focus | A | One market |
| Overall | C+ |
The P&L says good week. The scorecard says C+, and it says why: Wednesday. That's the one thing to fix next week.
Pick one thing to fix
Don't try to raise all six grades at once. Take your lowest grade below a B, write one concrete rule for it (“two losses ends the day”), and grade yourself on that rule next week. One fix a week adds up faster than six half-fixes.
A small week (fewer than 5 trades, or a grade resting on 2 losing trades) is an early signal, not a verdict. Note it and wait for more trades before you change anything.
Let the report card do the math
You can do all of this in a spreadsheet. Or drop your trade file into the free trading report card and get the grades in a few seconds, in your browser. From the file alone it grades Results, Risk control, Tilt control and Focus. With a free account it adds Discipline and Journaling from your journal, keeps every week, and grades your whole month too.
This article is for education only and isn't financial advice. The example numbers are made up to show the math. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss.