Post Trade Review Template and Worked Example

What is post trade analysis?

For a retail trader, post trade analysis means looking back at a finished trade to see what you planned, what you actually did, what it cost and what to change. It is a review of your decisions, not just your profit.

The same words have a second meaning in large institutions. There, post-trade work covers confirming, clearing and settling trades, and transaction cost analysis (TCA), which measures how well an order was executed compared with a benchmark price. This page is about the first meaning, the personal review. If you came for institutional execution analysis, a broker or an institutional vendor is the place to look.

A post trade review template records what you planned, what actually happened, whether you followed the rules and what to change next time. Copy the worksheet below into your own notes. The form above covers a single trade and has limitations: its Net P&L excludes charges, and its plan ratings are treated as prices. Use the written review to judge execution; do not rely on its consistency or Actual R:R (reward-to-risk ratio) labels.

Copy this post trade review worksheet

Fill the facts from your own trading records first. Then compare them with the plan you wrote before the trade. If a detail was never planned, write 'not planned' rather than inventing a rule after seeing the result. The prompts are a suggested review method, not a regulatory checklist.

Keep the original plan and the review distinguishable. For example, a plan might say 'exit when the setup fails', while the review says 'I moved the stop because I wanted the loss back'. Recording both preserves the decision you made rather than replacing it with a cleaner story.

What a post trade review should include

A useful review has the same parts every time, so you can compare one trade with the next. The worksheet above maps to this checklist:

• The facts: date, instrument, direction, quantity, entry and exit as they actually traded.
• The plan: the reason for entry, the stop, the target and the condition that cancels the idea.
• The costs: brokerage, STT and other charges, so you see the result after costs.
• The rules: which ones you followed, which you broke and what shows it.
• The feeling and the action it led to, in plain words.
• One next action you can check on the next trade.
• A screenshot or chart note if you use one, saved with the date.

If you trade Indian F&O, check the cost line against your contract note. Our F&O trading cost calculator can give a rough idea, but the contract note is the record that counts.

What the form actually accepts

The visible fields are Trade Date, Instrument, Direction, Entry Price, Exit Price, Quantity, Entry as Planned? (1-10), Exit as Planned? (1-10), and Emotional State During Trade. Quantity is the actual number of price units being reviewed. The calculation multiplies the price difference by this number; it does not discover the exchange lot size from the instrument's name.

The rating inputs have a mismatch: although their labels ask for scores, the calculation uses them as planned entry and exit prices. That distorts Consistency and Actual R:R. There is no stop-price field from which to measure the original risk. Keep your real planned prices and stop in the written worksheet, and leave these generated labels out of your judgement.

The form also has no field for charges, trade duration, chart history or a group of past trades. Its Net P&L is the entered price change multiplied by quantity. It does not establish a multi-trade win rate, profit factor or expected future return. A winning single entry can display an infinite profit factor because that one entry has no recorded loss.

Worked example: a profitable trade with a rule break

This is an invented cash-share example, unrelated to a current exchange contract. Suppose a trader planned to buy at ₹200, use a ₹195 stop and close 10 shares at ₹215. The actual purchase and sale match those assumed prices. Price profit is (₹215 − ₹200) × 10 = ₹150. Assume the total actual charges, solely for this example, are ₹20. The after-cost profit is ₹150 − ₹20 = ₹130.

Planned price risk was (₹200 − ₹195) × 10 = ₹50. That is the original denominator for reviewing the trade in risk units, often called R. Before costs, ₹150 ÷ ₹50 = 3R; after the assumed charges, ₹130 ÷ ₹50 = 2.6R. This arithmetic is a separate written review. The form's Actual R:R cannot establish it from its rating fields.

Now suppose the trader briefly widened the stop during the trade, then restored it before the successful exit. The money outcome is positive, but the decision broke the original risk rule. A useful review records both: 'profitable trade' and 'stop widened without a planned condition'. It would be misleading to write 'good discipline' simply because the position recovered.

For the valid monetary part of the form, entering Long, ₹200 entry, ₹215 exit and Quantity 10 produces a displayed Net P&L of ₹150. That is before the assumed ₹20 charge. A separate example with a ₹190 exit would produce (₹190 − ₹200) × 10 = −₹100 before costs. Neither result tells you whether the setup was valid.

Separate outcome from process

Use observable wording. 'Poor entry' is vague. 'Entered before the candle condition in my plan completed' identifies something you can check. Likewise, 'felt anxious' supplies context, while 'closed early because I felt anxious' connects that feeling to an action. Avoid diagnosing yourself or claiming that one emotion caused every loss.

How often to review: daily, weekly and monthly

No research fixes the right frequency for everyone. Many traders find that a short note right after the trade, while memory is fresh, plus a calmer weekly session works well. The weekly session is where you can group trades by setup, time of day and mistake. Our guide on how to review your trades shows a fuller routine.

Common mistakes in post trade analysis

• Judging by outcome: calling a trade good because it made money, even when a rule was broken.
• Hindsight bias: believing after the fact that the result was obvious, and rewriting the plan to match.
• Skipping costs: reviewing price profit and ignoring charges, which can turn a small win into a loss.
• Reviewing only losers: winners that broke rules need the same attention.
• Vague notes such as 'bad trade' that cannot be checked later.
• Drawing a conclusion from two or three trades.

To see how outcome and process differ, read the table above on separating outcome from process, and the glossary entries on expectancy and slippage.

Partial exits, costs and missing records

If a position closes in parts, keep each executed quantity and price. Do not use the full original position quantity against only the last exit. You can calculate a quantity-weighted exit price separately, but retain the underlying executions so you can check the summary later.

Compare the money result with the contract note or broker statement. If charges have already been deducted from a figure, avoid deducting them again. If charges are unknown, mark the result as before costs. The risk and reward calculator helps with planned distances, while this review should retain what really happened.

Turn the review into a next-session action

Choose an action that addresses the recorded mistake. A note such as 'trade better' cannot be checked. A note such as 'write the failure condition before entering' can be checked against the next trade record. Keep strategy changes separate from execution corrections: a rule followed badly and a rule that has poor results are different questions.

For a larger review, group comparable setup records and include losses as well as wins. The expectancy calculator uses entered win and loss statistics. It does not replace the underlying records. See how to keep a trading journal for a broader logging routine.

CME Group's trade-log lesson recommends recording entry and exit details, targets, timing and comments about why a trade was made, then writing daily conclusions. OneTradeJournal supports manual trade entries with strategy, stop, target, mistakes, emotions and notes. Its journal is separate from this single-trade form; enter enough context to make a later review meaningful.

Post trade analysis software or a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet is free and flexible. You decide the columns, and you can sort and total them. It takes discipline, because nothing reminds you to fill it in and every statistic is a formula you write yourself.

A journal app saves typing in one place and works out the statistics for you. OneTradeJournal is a manual journal: you enter each trade yourself, with emotions, mistakes, plan deviation, stop, target, strategy and notes. It estimates charges per trade and shows a P&L calendar, equity curve, win rate, profit factor, drawdown, and strategy and time analysis. It does not import from a broker, it is not a broker, and it gives no signals. Free use allows one trade a day per market. Paid AI features can comment on your journal, and the AI can be wrong. See the guide to keeping a trading journal.

Whichever you choose, the habit matters more than the tool. Pick the one you will still be using in three months.

Post trade review questions

Sources

• CME Group: Keep a Trade Log, checked 15 October 2026.