Practitioner course in trader judgement
Overtrading and the Performance Review
Overtrading is the most common and the most expensive habit in retail trading. This course measures it in your own record, shows what it costs in spreads, commissions and poor decisions, builds the rules that limit it, and ends with a full performance review of your trading across the whole programme.
Overtrading means taking more trades than your edge supports. Each extra trade pays the spread and commission, and the extra trades are usually the worst ones: taken out of boredom, after a loss, or because a market moved without you. Studies of brokerage accounts have long found that the most active traders earn the least. This course measures the habit in your own record and builds the limits that contain it.
What causes overtrading?
Mostly the same forces that drive gambling: variable rewards, the wish to win back a loss, and the discomfort of doing nothing. Screens that are always on and commission-free platforms make it worse. The course has you tag the trades driven by each cause and calculate their cost.
What goes into a trading performance review?
Your results by setup, market, time and state of mind, your costs, your drawdowns and how closely you followed your plan, with a written conclusion and a revised plan. The course guides you through a full review of the record you have kept since your first trading course.
Who is this course for?
Every trader on the trader path, and any active trader whose results lag their effort. No programming is needed.
What you will be able to do
- Measure trade frequency, cost drag and results by setup, time of day and state of mind in your record.
- Identify boredom, revenge and fear-of-missing-out trades and calculate what they cost.
- Set and test trade-count, loss and time limits that reduce overtrading.
- Write a full performance review of your trading with a revised plan for the next twelve months.
Syllabus, module by module
What overtrading is
Trading more than your edge supports, and the research on how trade frequency relates to returns.
The cost drag
Spreads, commissions and slippage as a share of your gross profit, trade by trade.
Why we overtrade
Boredom, revenge, fear of missing out, and the pull of variable rewards.
Limits that work
Daily trade counts, loss limits, trading windows and pre-commitment.
The performance review
Expectancy, drawdown, consistency and costs across your whole record, by setup and period.
The next twelve months
A revised plan: what to keep, what to drop and what to test next.
How the certificate is earned
Weekly review exercises and two graded problem sets: an overtrading audit of your record, and a full written performance review with a revised trading plan. On a pass you receive the Course certificate in Trading Performance Review, issued by the Institute with a verification code. Read how certification works.
Before you start
The Trading Plan: Ideas, Information and Rules.
This course counts toward
- Advanced Certificate in TradingThe third semester of the trader path, for a certified trader at advanced level: order flow, futures, momentum and breakouts, global macro, fundamental analysis, how desk traders think, prop trading firms and overtrading, with a desk-style simulated book as the capstone. No programming.
- Diploma in Professional TradingThe top credential on the trader path and the Institute's trading certification for people who do not write code. Three semesters, 24 courses and a 160-hour capstone, from a first lesson on how markets work to a six-month simulated trading business reviewed like a desk.
Questions applicants ask
How do I know if I am overtrading?
Sort your trades by whether they matched your plan. If the trades outside your plan lose money after costs, or if your results improve when you remove your most frequent days, you are overtrading. The course shows you how to run both checks in a spreadsheet.
Why is this the last course on the trader path?
Because the performance review uses your whole record from the programme. It closes the path with a written judgement of your trading and a plan for what comes next.