Weekly Review — Fifteen-Minute Friday Ritual

The weekly review is where the four pillars meet. Fifteen minutes every Friday after the close — or Saturday morning if you trade US hours alongside — is enough if journals are current. This page is the checklist TradeLyser mentors ask for: not theory, a repeatable ritual you can run in the same order every week.

Friday 15-minute checklist

• 1. Confirm all trades synced and tagged — fix untagged fills first.
• 2. Read expectancy and profit factor per strategy tag for the week.
• 3. Open your three largest losers — note rule break vs bad luck.
• 4. Score discipline 1–5 for each day; mark worst day and why.
• 5. Check drawdown vs monthly rupee limit — still inside plan?
• 6. Pick one change for next week (only one).
• 7. Write three-line plan for Monday: setups allowed, max loss, events.

Weekly vs monthly boundaries

Weekly review adjusts behaviour: rule breaks, size, setup filter. Monthly review adjusts structure: retire strategies, change capital allocation, revisit annual goals. Do not rewrite strategy rules every Friday — that is overfitting to last week’s Nifty move. Do not wait three months to notice a tag with negative expectancy — that is neglect.

What to change vs what to wait for

Change immediately: repeated rule breaks, untagged trades over 10% of volume, daily loss limit breaches. Wait for more data: five-trade losing streak on a tag with twenty-trade positive history, one bad expiry week on defined-risk spreads, single symbol gap against you. The sample-size rule applies to conclusions — not to safety rules.

Trade post-mortem on the worst trade

Each week, run a post-mortem on one trade — usually the largest loss or the sloppiest win. Template: planned vs actual entry, stop honoured?, checklist used?, strategy tag correct?, what emotion was present? Store in mistake log if it was a process error. Skip post-mortem on perfect execution losers — those are tuition, not failure.

Expiry week on Nifty

If Thursday was expiry, your weekly review must separate expiry-tagged trades from normal session trades. Compare slippage and size on both buckets. Many Indian books look fine weekly but bleed on twelve expiry Thursdays per year because half-size rule was ignored.

First Friday of the month

On the first Friday, add thirty minutes: refresh strategy scorecards, read full-month drawdown, audit mentor feedback, and set next month’s rupee risk per tag. Export or screenshot equity curve for your records — visual memory beats a single net number.

Close the loop to Monday

Weekly review ends where journaling begins. Monday pre-market note should reference last week’s one change explicitly: “Max three trades; no Bank Nifty after 14:30; half size on expiry.” That sentence is the trading system working — not a motivational quote.

Worked example: a fifteen-minute Friday

Week ending 6 June: twelve trades synced, two untagged — fixed tags first. Tag “Nifty ORB” expectancy +0.1R for week but three rule breaks on size. Worst trade: Tuesday Bank Nifty chase, logged revenge mood. Discipline scores: 4,3,2,4,3 — Wednesday was the leak. Drawdown still inside ₹8,000 monthly cap. One change chosen: no new trades after two losses in a day. Monday note written with RBI event on calendar and half size on Thursday expiry.

Weekly review mistakes

• Skipping review on losing weeks — when reflection matters most.
• Reviewing only P&L screenshot without opening trade list.
• Choosing three or more changes — nothing gets attributed.
• Rewriting entire strategy instead of one rule tweak.
• No Monday pre-market note — last week’s insight evaporates.

Handoff to mentor or self-audit

Export or share one paragraph summary: best tag, worst rule break, one change, Monday plan. Mentors need that summary before they open individual trades — it shows you ran process, not just equity. Self-directed traders can paste the same paragraph at the top of the next week’s journal as an anchor.

Red week protocol

Losing weeks need the same checklist — skipping review is how revenge Monday happens. On a red week, prioritise steps 3–4: largest losers and discipline scores. If rule breaks drove losses, your one change is process (earlier daily stop, smaller lots). If rules were clean and stops honoured, your one change may be “no change — wait for sample” — that is a valid outcome. Do not rewrite strategy on five trades after a compliant red week; do tighten rules immediately after a compliant green week that hid three size violations.

Quarterly review overlay

Every quarter, extend the first-Friday monthly session by thirty minutes: run edge audit per live tag, compare expectancy in high vs low India VIX buckets, and retire tags below profit factor 1.2 after forty trades. Reconcile annual rupee goals with actual drawdown tiers — if you hit Tier 3 twice in a quarter, annual size assumptions were wrong, not the market. Export equity curve and tag scorecards for your records; quarter boundaries matter for tax and psychology as much as metrics.

Copy-paste review template

Paste this into your journal after each Friday review and fill blanks: “Week of [date]: trades [n], untagged fixed [y/n]. Best tag: [name] expectancy [x]. Worst rule break: [type] on [day]. Discipline avg [1–5]. Drawdown vs cap: [ok/breach]. One change: [single sentence]. Monday: max loss ₹[ ], setups [ ], events [ ].” Two minutes to complete if the week was logged honestly — the template forces one change and a Monday bridge. Download the free Weekly Friday Review Sheet at Weekly Friday Review Sheet — Excel and PDF formats with the same seven-step structure.