Yearly trading review: one page that shows if this year was worth it

A one-page annual trading review template: real money result, costs, pass rate, best and worst setups, costliest habit, milestones and 3 rules for next year.

2026-11-05

The year is wrapping up and you're trying to answer one question: was it worth it? Your gut has an answer, but it mostly depends on how the last two weeks went. A yearly trading review replaces that feeling with one page of numbers you can trust.

A good annual trading review fits on one page and answers ten things: your real money result, what you spent, accounts and pass rate, how long accounts lasted, best and worst setups, your costliest behavior, turning points, milestones, lessons, and three rules for next year. Here's the template, with an example for every line.

The one-page yearly review template

Real money result: was the year green?

Count only real money. Payouts received, minus everything you paid prop firms (evaluations, resets, activation and monthly fees). Add realized P&L from personal accounts, and subtract other costs like data, platforms and courses. Simulated evaluation profits don't count. Neither do deposits and withdrawals, because that's your own money moving.

A sample trader in our demo is down $10,184 all together since day one. But the last 12 months come out at +$28, and the last 3 months at +$1,026. Same trader, three very different stories.

That's the insight most yearly reviews miss: judge the year against your career, and the last quarter against the year. A red career with a green year is a completely different place from a red year. If you had payouts, this is also the number your accountant will ask about, so check with a tax professional on how to report it.

Judge the year against your career, and the last quarter against the year.

Costs: where did the money go?

List every cost by category. Here's the sample trader's spending over their whole career (do the same for your year):

Two things to look for. Which category grew compared with last year? And which one surprises you? Here, courses and signals cost more than platforms and data combined, and resets added 28% on top of evaluation fees. Pick one category to cut next year.

Accounts, pass rate and lifespan

Count accounts bought, accounts blown, evaluations passed out of those that finished (leave out the ones still active), and payouts. The sample trader's career: 37 accounts, 28 blown, 5 passes out of 29 finished evaluations (17%), and $1,404 in firm fees per funded account. More on calculating yours in your prop firm pass rate.

Then write down how long your blown accounts lasted on average, this year against last. The sample trader's first accounts lasted about 5 days and the latest about 20. Accounts lasting longer is progress you can see well before the payouts catch up.

Best and worst setups

Write your best setup by result per trade (with 30+ trades) and your worst. For the sample trader: Opening range at +$44.42 per trade over 85 trades, and Reversal at −$23.96 over 117 trades. Also check each setup's result year by year. Breakout was green in 2 of 3 years, which is more convincing than one great year.

Decide one thing for each: focus more on the best, retire the worst.

Costliest behavior and turning points

Add up the P&L of trades flagged by each behavior (revenge trades, sizing up after a loss, trading past your loss limit and so on) and write down the top one. For the sample trader it was revenge trades, by far. The trading behaviors that cost the most money shows how to total them.

Then list the dated changes you made: new rules, plays added or retired, size changes. For each, compare the weeks before with the weeks after. The sample trader went back to 1 MES and added two rules on February 23, 2026. After that, win rate went from 26% to 56% and P&L per trading day from −$253 to +$26. That's what happened after, not proof of cause. Trading turning points explains how to read them fairly.

Milestones and lessons

Write the milestones you earned this year with their dates: an account that lasted 30 days, a first pass, a month with no revenge trades, a first payout. For the sample trader, the first payout came in month 25, and total payouts passed $1,000 soon after.

Then copy the lesson from every account you blew this year into one list. Circle any lesson that appears more than once. A repeated lesson is a rule that isn't working yet.

Three rules for next year

Now read the page top to bottom and write three rules, each tied to a line above. Three, not ten. You'll remember three.

• From your costliest behavior: "After 2 losses, the day is over."
• From your setups: "No reversal trades. Opening range and trend continuation only."
• From your costs: "No new evaluation while another account is still active."

Write them at the bottom of the page and tape it somewhere you'll see it in January.

Four mistakes that skew a yearly review

• Counting simulated profit as income. $3,000 of profit in a funded account isn't money until it's paid out.
• Forgetting small costs. A data renewal, a platform upgrade and a course bought in March add up. Go through your card statements once.
• Reviewing only the last month. A great or awful December can feel like the whole year. Read your results month by month before you judge.
• Writing goals instead of rules. "Make $20,000 next year" is a hope. "Done by noon" is something you can do tomorrow morning.

How to do it in an hour

With a spreadsheet, plan on an afternoon. In Market Matrix, every part of My Trading Journey has a period selector with each year, so you can set it to 2026 and read the page straight off the screen.

• Am I profitable? gives the real money result with its formula, costs by category, account counts with pass rate, and a money statement by month or year you can export to CSV.
• Am I getting better? compares two stretches (for example this year against last), shows how long your prop accounts last, your turning points and the lessons from blown accounts.
• My edge & milestones shows every setup's result each year, what costs you money, and the milestones earned in each chapter.

Do your yearly review in My Trading Journey →

One last tip: if you do a quarterly trading review, the yearly one gets much easier. It becomes four short pages read together, and you'll spot the quarter where things turned.

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This article is for education only and isn't financial advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss.