End of Month Performance Review

By: ShortMeTina
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​The time frame you decide to use should be based on your own personal preference.  My suggestion would be to analyze your performance more frequently (weekly) if you tend to place a lot of trades, less frequently (monthly, quarterly, annually) if you’re not active in the markets.  Personally, I tend to look at my performance on a monthly basis.
Don’t get caught up with what time frame is necessarily best at this juncture, I would just be concerned with doing it and remaining consistent with the process. 

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Why is this Important?
Reviewing your trades, the same way any pro-athlete reviews his or her performance, is essential for improvement. 
When you analyze your trades; you’re effectively looking for spots of weakness and strength.  

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Things to Consider

The first is the most obvious; you want to pay attention to your profit/loss.  Are you consistently profitable month over month or quarter over quarter.  Or are you losing money?
Examining the broader market is also a good metric to weigh performance.  Are your results better than the broader markets?  Worse?
 
When I perform my end of month review, I am also looking at winning percentage vs. losing percentage.  Am I placing winning trades 30% of the times, losing trades 70% of the times?  What’s the ratio?
I also take it a step further, as winning percentages does not tell the whole story.
 
I am looking at my biggest winner for the month and my biggest loser. 
What did I do for that big win? Can I replicate it for “bigger wins” moving forward?  Conversely, why did I experience such a big loss?  Did I do anything wrong in that particular trade, if so, what was it? 
I need to know this because I want to avoid doing things that lead to big losses and remain repetitious with methods “methodology” that lead to wins.   

Strategies and Time Frames

Do I preform better with intraday signals or am I the most profitable when I rely on the daily and weekly timeframes?

Am I better at shorting stocks, or do most of my profits come from trading breakouts? 
In this example, if trading breakouts on a daily timeframe tends to produce better profits then maybe you want to exclusively trade “break-outs on the daily”. 
 
Again, performance review is essential to trading success. 
How you want to approach the review process is up to you.  The examples provided above are some of the things I consider.  Just have fun with it and come up with your own.  You’ll be surprised how much you learn about your trading with this simple exercise. 

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​What interesting things did you find out after reviewing your performance?  Share below. 
 
Good, Bad or Ugly… …get involved and leave a comment on any social media site of your choice. 

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​Email me at tina@shortmetina.com with any questions. ​