Which process metric predicts next month better than P&L?

[LondonScalper]

I've been testing this question on my own records for the past year, because monthly P&L is a terrible predictor of the next month. A good month is followed by a bad one about as often as by another good one.

What I tracked monthly, alongside P&L:

Percentage of trades that followed the written plan, judged from screenshots.

Number of trades taken outside my allowed hours.

Average time between a losing exit and the next entry.

Percentage of days on which I stopped at my daily limit.

Number of days with no trade taken (valid "no setup" days).

Then I looked at which of these, in one month, best predicted the next month's result in R.

With only 18 months of data, I have to be careful. But the clearest relationship was with plan adherence. Months in which I followed the plan on more than 90% of trades were usually followed by positive months. When adherence fell below 80%, the following month was negative more often than not.

The time between a loss and the next entry was also useful. When that average fell below ten minutes, the next month tended to be poor. I read that as a sign that I'm getting impatient, which usually gets worse before it gets better.

P&L itself predicted almost nothing.

I don't want to overclaim from 18 data points. But I now look at plan adherence first on the monthly review, and P&L second.

[Shadow Trader]

Your finding on time between a loss and the next entry matches mine, with one twist. In my records the average hides a lot. What predicted a bad following month was the number of re-entries within three minutes of a loss, not the mean gap.

A month with two or three of those was normal. A month with eight or more was almost always followed by a worse one, even when the month itself was profitable.

On plan adherence, I'd be careful with the 90% threshold given how it's measured. Judging from screenshots after the fact, I tend to be generous with myself on the trades that won. I started having the screenshot reviewed before looking at the outcome, with the P&L column hidden.

That changed my adherence figures by about 5 points in some months, which would have moved several of them across your 80 and 90 lines.

One metric I'd add: trades taken in the first five minutes after a big win. That's where I see the opposite of revenge trading, the overconfidence trade, and it's been as costly for me.

Did the days with no trade show any relationship at all? I expected them to, and in my data they didn't.