The Monthly Review: Grading Your Trading Month

A trading month can feel like anything.

A few big wins and it feels like genius. Two ugly weeks and it feels like the account is dying, even if you finished green. Feelings are terrible accountants, and at monthly scale they are also expensive ones, because the decisions you make off them, changing systems, changing size, changing everything, compound for quarters.

The monthly review is where I stop feeling my trading and start auditing it. Sixty minutes, once a month, same questions every time. Here is exactly how it runs.

Step 1: The numbers that matter (15 minutes)

Net R, not net dollars. R multiples survive size changes and red days. If the month produced positive R with controlled drawdown, the engine works, whatever the dollars say at this account size.

Expectancy by setup. Every trade gets sorted by its named setup. One of them is carrying the month and one of them is quietly bleeding, and they are rarely the ones I assumed. This single table has fired more losing setups from my playbook than any opinion I ever had.

Win rate versus average win and loss. The math of expectancy decides whether the month was skill, luck, or slow leakage. A high win rate with tiny wins and huge losses is a bad month wearing a good costume.

Max drawdown and longest red stretch. Not to punish myself, but because size decisions must be made from the worst the system actually does, not the best it felt.

Step 2: The leak audit (20 minutes)

Numbers find the leaks. Honesty names them.

The rule-break ledger. Every journal entry where I broke a written rule gets tagged. End of month, I count the R those trades cost. Rule breaks are the only truly unacceptable losses, because the market did not take that money. I handed it over. The monthly total, in dollars, is the most motivating number in my entire trading life.

The time-of-day split. Morning R versus midday versus power hour. Most traders discover their afternoon is a charity. The data ends the argument my ego keeps trying to win.

The emotional state split. My journal logs one word per trade: calm, frustrated, euphoric, bored. Sorted by R at month's end, this table is a personality profile with a price tag. If bored trades cost the month, the fix is not a new setup. The fix is fewer hours at the screen.

Step 3: One fix for next month (15 minutes)

This is the step everyone ruins by choosing five fixes.

One. Only one. The single biggest leak by dollars lost, converted into one written rule change, effective the first of the month, reviewed at the next monthly review with at least 30 trades of evidence. Changing five things means learning nothing about any of them. Enterprises turn one dial at a time. So do traders who last.

The rule change goes on the one-page plan. The old version gets dated and kept, because knowing what you used to believe is part of the audit trail.

Step 4: The business lines (10 minutes)

Expenses versus income. Platforms, data, education, subscriptions, against trading profit. Traders love quoting gross. Businesses run on net.

Tax and records housekeeping. Broker statements downloaded, journal exported, receipts filed, monthly, while it is easy. The trader who does this in April in one sitting hates a version of himself he could have saved in ten minutes a month.

Next month's calendar. Earnings season, FOMC dates, OPEX, holidays, personal commitments. Size and schedule decisions made now, calmly, beat the same decisions made mid-month, emotionally.

Want a second set of eyes on your month? Members post their monthly reviews and get them broken down inside the free Bulls Corner Discord. Get in free here, just drop your email and you're inside.

The point of the whole hour

Weekly reviews tune the driver. Monthly reviews audit the business: which setups pay rent, which habits leak money, which single fix moves the needle next. Run it sixty times and you have five years of evidence about exactly who you are as a trader. That evidence, not motivation, is what full-time trading is actually built on.

FAQ

What should a monthly trading review include?

Net results in R multiples, expectancy broken down by setup, win rate versus average win and loss, max drawdown, a rule-break cost tally, and performance splits by time of day and emotional state. Finish by choosing one fix for next month and recording business items like expenses and next month's key dates.

How is a monthly review different from a weekly review?

Weekly reviews focus on execution: mistakes made, rules followed, levels for next week. Monthly reviews operate at business level: which setups actually have positive expectancy, which habits leak the most money, and whether routines or size need structural change. One tunes the driver, the other audits the machine.

How many changes should I make after a monthly review?

One. Pick the largest leak measured in dollars or R lost, turn it into a single written rule, and give it at least 30 trades before judging it. Multiple simultaneous changes make it impossible to know what worked and usually reflect emotion rather than evidence.

Risk note: everything on this blog is educational content from my own trading experience, not financial advice. Trading options involves substantial risk of loss.