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The 20-minute post-market review

Lesson 27 · about 8 min

The review is where the playbook improves. Twenty minutes, every trading day, in the same format, is enough; longer reviews get skipped, and a review skipped on the day of a loss is the one that mattered. This lesson gives the format, the log fields that make it possible, and the weekly and monthly roll-ups that turn daily notes into decisions.

The log

Every trade gets one row. Fill it in during the session where possible (entry, stop, size, grade) and complete it in the review. Minimum fields:

Field Example Why
Date, time of entry 2026-03-12 09:44 Time-of-day analysis
Instrument MES Per-product sample
Setup VWAP reclaim Per-setup expectancy
Day type called (10:30) Range Read accuracy
Day type actual (close) Range Read accuracy
Direction Long
Planned entry / actual entry 5,018.25 / 5,018.50 Slippage, chasing
Stop (price) and 1R ($) 5,012.25 / $30 per contract Sizing check
Size 3 Sizing check
Exit(s) and R half 5,027 (+1.5R), half 5,018.5 (0R) Result
Net R after cost +0.7R The number that matters
Grade (before result) A Process
Note (one line) Held runner to BE; trail would have got 2.5R The lesson

A spreadsheet is enough. The two fields most traders omit are the grade and the planned-versus-actual entry; both are the ones the review depends on.

The 20-minute format

Minutes 0 to 3: complete the log. Fill any blank fields. Net R after cost for each trade and for the day.

Minutes 3 to 8: grade the plan. Open the morning checklist. Three questions, answered in one line each:

  1. Was the day-type lean at 9:30 right? Was the 10:30 call right?
  2. Did the eligible setups trigger, and were they the right ones for the day that actually happened?
  3. Was anything on the sheet wrong (a level, a scheduled event, a filter)?

Minutes 8 to 15: grade the trades. For each trade, confirm the A or F grade and write the one-line note. For F trades, name the specific rule broken, using the checklist's language: "entered above trigger ceiling", "setup not eligible", "fourth trade". For A trades that lost, write "A, stopped, no change" and move on. Do not study A-grade losses; they are the cost of the edge.

Minutes 15 to 18: the one thing. Write a single sentence: the one behaviour to repeat or remove tomorrow. Not three things. One. It goes on top of tomorrow's checklist.

Minutes 18 to 20: mark the chart. Screenshot the session with entries and exits marked, filed by date. Annotate nothing except the trades; the screenshot is for the weekly review and for replay.

Then close the platform. The review is done when the timer says so.

What to look at and what to ignore

Look at:

  • The grade distribution. If F trades exceed 10% of trades in a week, the problem is execution, not the playbook, and the fix is smaller size and the checklist.
  • The day-type accuracy. Below 70% correct at 10:30 means the Module 5 read needs more replay sessions before it controls size.
  • Planned versus actual entry, in R. Above 0.1R average is chasing or bad order types.
  • Time of entry versus net R. The bucket analysis from Module 2.

Ignore:

  • The daily P&L in dollars. It is one draw from a distribution and the review's job is the distribution.
  • Whether an A-grade loss "could have been avoided". It could not, without a rule change, and rule changes come from the sample, not from one trade.
  • Setups that worked but were not in the plan. Noting "would have made 3R on the midday breakout" is the first step toward taking it next time.

Weekly roll-up: 30 minutes on Friday

Metric This week Last 4 weeks
Trades 14 58
A-grade % 93% 88%
Net R, all trades +2.1R +6.4R
Net R, A trades only +2.9R +9.1R
Win rate, A trades 50% 53%
Avg win / avg loss (R) 1.7 / 0.8 1.6 / 0.85
Day-type accuracy at 10:30 80% 74%
Avg slippage, entry (R) 0.04 0.05
Rule breaches 1 (fourth trade Tue) 5

The gap between "net R, all trades" and "net R, A trades only" is the cost of your F-grade trades, in R. In the example above that is 2.7R over four weeks, which for many traders is the difference between a profitable month and a losing one, and it comes entirely from trades the checklist already forbade.

Monthly: the sample check

Once a month, count the A-grade trades per setup. Any setup with 30 or more A-grade trades gets an expectancy calculation. Anything under 30 stays in the "insufficient sample" column and continues at normal size. The next lesson sets the threshold at which a setup is judged; the monthly check only tells you how close you are.

Key idea: Twenty minutes a day in a fixed format, grading the plan and the process rather than the P&L, is what converts a log into a better playbook. The one-sentence "one thing" is the whole output.

Try it: Do the 20-minute review on your last session, or on a replay session, with a timer running. If it takes 40 minutes, you are studying A-grade losses or reliving the day. Cut those and run it again.

Recap

  • Log every trade with setup, day type called and actual, planned and actual entry, R after cost, grade before result, and a one-line note.
  • The review is 20 minutes: complete the log, grade the plan, grade the trades, write one sentence for tomorrow, file the chart.
  • Study F-grade trades and plan errors; do not study A-grade losses.
  • Weekly, compare net R of all trades to net R of A trades: the gap is what breaking your own rules costs.
  • Monthly, count A-grade trades per setup toward the sample threshold.

See it drawn

Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.

The spread of outcomes behind an expectancyA histogram of forty trades: a tall block of small losses on the left, a low spread of larger wins on the right, and a line marking the average outcome.NUMBER OF TRADES051024 LOSSES, AVG −$20016 WINS, AVG +$600EXPECTANCY +$120−$400−$200$0+$200+$400+$600+$800PROFIT OR LOSS PER TRADEexpectancy = (40% × $600) − (60% × $200) = +$120 per trade
Expectancy: the average trade. Forty trades sorted by outcome: 24 small losses and 16 larger wins. Weighting each side by how often it happens gives the average result per trade, marked here by the dashed line at +$120.
Slippage on a market orderA buy order clears four price levels, so the average price paid is worse than the price first quoted.Buy 1,000 shares at marketpricesell orders resting (bar length = size)20.04300 shares20.03200 shares20.01200 shares20.00300 sharesnothing resting at 20.02order sweeps up the bookaverage fill 20.02SLIPPAGE0.02 a share$20.00 in totalintended 20.00Each level fills at its own price; the average is what you really paid.
Slippage on a market order. You click at 20.00, but only 300 shares are resting there, so the rest of the order fills at 20.01, 20.03 and 20.04. The average price paid is 20.02, and that two-cent gap is slippage.
How a position size is worked outAccount size, risk per trade and stop distance feed into one box giving the number of shares.ACCOUNT SIZE$25,000your capitalRISK PER TRADE1%of the accountSTOP DISTANCE$0.50entry to stopPOSITION SIZE500 sharesrisk budget: $25,000 × 1% = $250position size: $250 ÷ $0.50 = 500 shares
Working out a position size. Three numbers decide how big a trade is: the account, the share of it put at risk, and the distance from entry to stop. One percent of $25,000 is a $250 budget, and a $0.50 stop divides into that 500 times.