Guida - Prop Trading
Most traders check one number after a week of trading: the P&L. That number tells you almost nothing about why it happened. This template breaks your trade history into six blocks you can fill in every Sunday, using nothing but a spreadsheet and your MT5 export.
Why P&L Alone Won't Make You a Better Trader
P&L is an outcome. It tells you what happened, not how it happened. Two traders can close the same week up 3% and be in completely different shape: one followed a plan and got a fair result, the other broke every rule and got lucky. Only one of them is repeatable.
A diary that just lists profit and loss per day is a scoreboard. A weekly review is a system: it turns raw trades into process metrics you can compare week over week. That's the difference between remembering "I felt good this week" and knowing "my win rate was 42% and my average R was 1.6."
Self-coaching without structured data is guesswork. Memory is selective - you remember the big win, not the three small mistakes that led up to it. A template forces you to look at every trade, not just the ones that stuck.
What You Need Before You Start: Exporting Your Trade History
Open MT5, go to the Account History tab, right-click, and choose Save as Report (or export to Excel/CSV depending on your build). That single file is the raw material for the whole review.
You don't need every column, but these matter:
- Symbol and volume (lot size)
- Open and close time
- Entry and exit price
- Stop loss and take profit at the time of the trade
- Commission and swap
This works the same way on a demo or simulated account, which is exactly how evaluation accounts are structured. If you're reviewing a challenge account, the current rules that shape how you should read this data - drawdown type and profit target values - are listed on current drawdown type and profit target values.
The Weekly Review Template: 6 Blocks to Fill In
Block 1 - Win rate
Count total trades, wins, and losses. Win rate is wins divided by total trades. A 55% win rate on 20 trades is 11 wins and 9 losses - not impressive on its own, but a starting point.
Block 2 - Realized R-multiple
Not what you planned - what actually happened. If your average risk per trade was 50 units and your average winner closed at 90 units, that trade was a 1.8R win. Average this across every trade for the week.
Block 3 - Expectancy
Expectancy = (win% x average win) - (loss% x average loss). Example: win rate 50%, average win 100, average loss 60.
| Component | Value |
|---|---|
| Win% x avg win | 0.5 x 100 = 50 |
| Loss% x avg loss | 0.5 x 60 = 30 |
| Expectancy per trade | 50 - 30 = 20 |
That's a positive edge of 20 units per trade, before commission and swap. Subtract those to get the real number.
Block 4 - Performance by session
Tag every trade by time of day: Asian, London, New York. Most traders have one session where they're consistently sharper. This block finds it.
Block 5 - Drawdown behavior
Track how close your equity got, at its worst point in the week, to your account's maximum drawdown line. Some evaluation structures use a drawdown that moves up with your equity and then locks at a fixed level once it reaches a certain point - others stay static from day one. Which mechanism applies to your account, and where the current thresholds sit, is documented on current drawdown type and profit target values. What matters for this block isn't the exact number - it's whether you're getting closer to that line week over week or further away from it.
Block 6 - Rule and discipline flags
List anything outside your plan: oversized lots, a revenge entry after a loss, a trade taken without a setup. This block is qualitative, but it's often the one that explains a bad expectancy number better than any statistic does.
Turning Weekly Stats Into Monthly Trends
One week is noise. A single bad session can wreck a win rate that's actually fine over a longer sample. Four to eight weeks of the same six blocks start to be signal.
Look for expectancy trending up even if win rate stays flat - that usually means your winners are getting bigger relative to your losers, which is a healthier shift than just winning more often. Change one variable at a time: lot size one week, session focus the next, setup selection after that. If you change three things at once and the numbers move, you won't know which change did it.
Common Mistakes When Reviewing Your Own Trades
- Reviewing only after a green week and skipping the review when the week was red - that's when the data matters most.
- Treating a high win rate as proof of profitability. A 70% win rate with tiny wins and rare, oversized losses can still be net negative.
- Forgetting commission and swap. They erode expectancy quietly, trade after trade.
- Doing the review right after a loss. The read is emotional, not analytical. Wait until you're calm, ideally the same day each week.
How This Review Fits an Evaluation or Funded Account Workflow
On an evaluation or funded account, Block 3 and Block 5 together tell you something specific: your distance from the profit target and your distance from the drawdown floor, side by side. That's more useful than checking your balance ten times a day.
Some funding models remove the daily loss limit entirely and are governed only by max drawdown, while others combine a daily limit with an overall drawdown limit. Which mechanism applies to a given challenge - and the exact thresholds - can change over time, so check current drawdown type and profit target values rather than assuming. If your account has no daily loss limit, Block 5 changes accordingly, since there's no intraday ceiling to track separately from the overall drawdown line.
For the exact drawdown type, profit targets and thresholds that apply to your specific challenge, check current drawdown type and profit target values rather than relying on memory or an old screenshot.
Once funded, add a seventh line to your review: payout. FundedVerse processes payouts with an average turnaround of 9 hours and a stated maximum of 24 hours, which is worth tracking as part of your own process data, not as a promise about your next request.
If you want to talk through your numbers with other traders instead of just staring at a spreadsheet, the Live Trading Room is a place to do that in real time.
Run the Six Blocks This Week
Export your MT5 trade history, run it through these six blocks once, and see where your process actually stands before you scale size or risk. If the numbers hold up, check which challenge structure on challenge options and pricing matches how you already trade. For more on building a repeatable process instead of chasing outcomes, browse more trading process articles.
What's the difference between a trading journal and a weekly review template?
A journal logs individual trades as they happen - entry, exit, reasoning. A weekly review aggregates that log into statistics like win rate, expectancy, and drawdown behavior so you can spot patterns across many trades instead of judging one at a time.
How many trades do I need before these statistics are meaningful?
Below 20-30 trades, win rate and expectancy can swing wildly from a single outlier. Treat early numbers as directional, not conclusive, and keep running the template for four to eight weeks before drawing firm conclusions.
Can I run this template on a demo or simulated account?
Yes. The MT5 export process and the calculations are identical on a demo or simulated account. This is exactly how evaluation and challenge accounts operate, so the review applies without modification.
What is expectancy and why does it matter more than win rate alone?
Expectancy combines win rate with the size of your average win and average loss into one number: your expected result per trade. A trader can have a low win rate and still be profitable if winners are large relative to losses - win rate alone can't tell you that.
How does a trailing drawdown change what I should be tracking every week?
When a drawdown line moves up with your equity, your maximum room for error can shrink even while you're winning, until it locks at a fixed level. Block 5 exists to catch that shift early. Check current drawdown type and profit target values for how this applies to your specific account.