Monthly trading performance report: what to include, with a template

A good monthly report fits on one page: eleven lines of figures, five lines of commentary, one rule to change. Here is the template, and how to produce the numbers fast.

A monthly trading report is a one-page summary of what you did, what it earned and what you will change. It is not a performance claim for anyone else. It is a habit that forces you to look at a whole month at once, which is the first point where a real pattern shows up instead of the noise of single trades.

What a monthly trading report should contain

Keep it to figures you can calculate from your own closed trades and a few lines of judgement. This list works for forex, gold and index traders on MetaTrader 5.

Figure	What it is	Why it earns a place
Period and account	Dates, account number, currency	So the file still makes sense in a year
Net P&L	Profit plus commission plus swap	The one number that pays the bills
Trades	Count of closed trades	Tells you whether a rule-based month was actually active
Win rate	Winners divided by all trades	Only meaningful beside the next two lines
Average win and loss	Mean net of winners, mean net of losers	Shows the reward-to-risk you really got
Profit factor	Gross profit divided by gross loss	Above 1 means winners outweighed losers
Expectancy per trade	Average net result per trade	Your edge, in money, per trade taken
Best and worst day	Highest and lowest daily result	Shows how much one day can move a month
Longest losing run	Most consecutive losing trades	Prepares you for the next one
Maximum drawdown	Largest fall from a running peak, on closed trades	The pain you had to sit through
Rule adherence	Share of trades that followed your plan	Separates a bad month from a bad plan

The first ten rows come from numbers. The last one comes from you, and it is the most useful. A losing month with 95 percent rule adherence is a market problem you can wait out. A winning month with 50 percent adherence is luck you cannot rely on. Our guide to win rate, profit factor and expectancy explains how to read the three headline figures together.

A template you can copy

Paste this into a note or a document and fill it in at the end of each month.

Month and account: October 2026, account 1234567
Net P&L, trades, win rate: ___ , ___ , ___ %
Average win, average loss, profit factor: ___ , ___ , ___
Expectancy per trade, max drawdown: ___ , ___
Best day, worst day, longest losing run: ___ , ___ , ___
Best and worst weekday, best and worst hour, best and worst symbol: ___
Rule adherence: ___ % of trades followed the plan
One thing to repeat: ___
One thing to change next month: ___

How to write the commentary in five lines

What happened: one sentence on the result and the market backdrop, for example a month of low volatility or a news-heavy week.
What worked: the setup, symbol or session that produced most of the profit.
What did not: the pattern in the losers, such as late entries, moved stops or trades after a loss.
The cost of breaking rules: add up the result of the trades that broke your plan. That number is often the whole month.
The one change: a single, testable rule for next month. Several changes at once cannot be judged afterwards.

Three ways to produce the numbers

By hand. Export your history from MetaTrader 5, remove balance rows, and calculate the figures with COUNTIF, SUMIF and AVERAGE. Allow an hour the first month and less afterwards. Our MT5 trading report in Excel page walks through it.

From a template. A spreadsheet with the formulas already in place, such as our free MT5 journal template, removes the formula work. You still paste the trades in.

From your journal. If AI Trading Journal already keeps your closed trades in your journal, the Export Report button in the app builds the monthly report for you. Choose the account, select Last month (or this month so far, the last 30 days, or custom dates), and save. You get a Summary sheet with fifteen key figures and six charts, a Daily sheet, a Trades sheet and the chart data, all as live formulas. The commentary is still yours to write, and it should be.

A worked example, with illustrative numbers

The figures below are made up to show how the lines fit together. They are not a result from any real account.

Line	Example
Period	1 to 30 September, one account
Trades, win rate	79 trades, 62.0 percent
Net P&L	1,225.73
Average win, average loss	42.82 and 29.08
Profit factor	2.41
Expectancy per trade	15.52
Best day, worst day	271.38 and negative 117.64
Winning days	18 of 22
Longest losing run	4 trades

Read the way a reviewer would: a 62 percent win rate with an average win larger than the average loss gives a profit factor well above 1, and 18 winning days out of 22 says the result was not one lucky session. The worst day lost less than half of the best day gained. The commentary would then look for the four-trade losing run and ask what the entries had in common.

Sharing the report

A monthly report is a good thing to show a trading coach, a mentor or a prop-firm friend, because it answers the obvious questions on one page. Be honest about what it is: figures you produced from your own trades, self-reported and not audited. If you need numbers that others can verify, read how to build a track record. And remember that past results do not predict future ones.

Frequently asked questions

What is a monthly trading performance report?

A one-page summary of a month of closed trades: net result, win rate, average win and loss, profit factor, expectancy, drawdown, your rule adherence, and one change for next month.

What should a monthly trading report include?

At minimum: net P&L, number of trades, win rate, average win and loss, profit factor, maximum drawdown, best and worst day, and your own notes on what to repeat and what to change.

Can I make the report in Excel automatically?

Yes. If your trades are journaled by AI Trading Journal, Export Report builds an Excel workbook for last month or any dates in a few clicks.

How long should it take each month?

About ten to twenty minutes once the numbers are produced for you. Building the figures by hand takes longer, especially the first time.

Is this a report I can show investors?

It is a self-reported record of your own trades. It is not audited or independently verified, so describe it that way.

Related guides

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