Many traders have a feeling like "I lose at the open" or "I hold losers too long", but without numbers it is hard to act on.
The agent breaks your trades down by hour, day, duration, instrument and side, and names the two places where most of the money goes.
Where am I losing money? Break down my trades from the journal by entry hour, day of the week, duration, instrument and side. Find the two places where I lose the most, with the number of trades in each. If there are fewer than 30 trades, say so and call it an observation only. Don't change anything.
What happens
The example uses a six-month journal: 1,100 closed trades in ES, NQ and CL. Look at the first lines of the answer. They name the two places where almost all the losses went, and the table below shows where that comes from.
Where am I losing money? Break down my trades from the journal by entry hour, day of the week, duration, instrument and side. Find the two places where I lose the most, with the number of trades in each. If there are fewer than 30 trades, say so and call it an observation only. Don't change anything.
The two biggest losing areas:
- Entries in the first 15 minutes after the US open, 14:30-14:44 London time: −13,279.50 USD, 191 trades. Win rate 40.3%, average result −69.53 USD per trade, profit factor 0.47. That is 17% of all trades.
- Holding longer than two hours: −9,939.00 USD, 52 trades. Win rate 25.0%, average result −191.13 USD, profit factor 0.18.
The two groups barely overlap: 8 trades fall into both, for −1,243.00 USD. The other 865 trades together made +1,035.00 USD, profit factor 1.02. Almost all of the period's loss sits in these two places.
1,100 closed trades over 130 trading days, May 4 to Oct 30, 2026. That is enough to speak of a repeating pattern, but not of its cause. The journal doesn't show why you entered in those minutes or why you didn't close the position earlier.
Overall result: −20,940.50 USD, win rate 48.3%, profit factor 0.73. Commission in the journal is 7,398.00 USD. Without it the result would be −13,542.50 USD.
| Breakdown | Group | Trades | Result, USD | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry hour¹ | 14:30-14:44 | 191 | −13,279.50 | 40.3% |
| 20:00-20:59 | 65 | −3,033.50 | 46.2% | |
| 11:00-11:59 | 63 | −2,557.00 | 36.5% | |
| 18:00-18:59 | 75 | +2,562.00 | 64.0% | |
| 19:00-19:59 | 94 | +1,032.00 | 56.4% | |
| Entry day | Monday | 229 | −6,292.00 | 45.9% |
| Tuesday | 229 | −2,782.50 | 47.2% | |
| Wednesday | 221 | −3,189.50 | 49.3% | |
| Thursday | 217 | −4,861.50 | 47.0% | |
| Friday | 204 | −3,815.00 | 52.5% | |
| Duration | Under 1 minute | 80 | +844.50 | 48.8% |
| 1-5 minutes | 381 | −4,183.50 | 50.4% | |
| 5-15 minutes | 348 | −3,160.00 | 49.4% | |
| 15-60 minutes | 212 | −5,728.50 | 47.2% | |
| 1-2 hours | 27 | +1,226.00 | 55.6% | |
| Over 2 hours | 52 | −9,939.00 | 25.0% | |
| Instrument | ES | 507 | −10,241.50 | 48.5% |
| NQ | 407 | −5,092.50 | 47.9% | |
| CL | 186 | −5,606.50 | 48.4% | |
| Side | Long | 634 | −10,111.00 | 50.2% |
| Short | 466 | −10,829.50 | 45.7% |
¹ Times are Europe/London. For entry hour, the three worst and two best intervals are shown. I can show the full breakdown for every hour separately.
The breakdowns overlap. For example, Monday and holding longer than two hours can describe the same trades, so their losses can't be added together. I didn't change anything.
This is a review of past trades. Trading decisions are yours.