Who this is for — Anyone who wants to understand where performance really comes from, instead of attributing everything to strategy or luck.
Performance attribution separates results into components: setup contribution, market-regime impact, operational costs, execution errors, and plan deviations. It is the key step to improve with precision.
In plain terms — It is not enough to know "how much" you earned: you need to know "why".
Prerequisites — Complete silver-path first (min.: weekly-review, playbook, trading-plan, checklist). Foundation: bronze-path.
How to apply it usefully
Attribution works when it leads to concrete decisions, not only retrospective analysis.
- Segment results by setup, time band, regime, and instrument.
- Isolate plan-compliant trades from out-of-process trades.
- Measure the weight of costs, slippage, and avoidable errors.
Example — The quarter is positive, but attribution shows profit comes almost entirely from two setups in risk-on, while the rest is negative. You decide to cut marginal strategies and concentrate risk where edge is proven.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Analysing only total result without decomposition.
- Ignoring regime effect when reading metrics.
- Changing the method without evidence on the cause of the problem.
Card
- What it is: structured breakdown of performance drivers.
- What changes: improves risk allocation toward real edge.
- Quick check: verify report by setup, regime, costs, and compliance.
Gold path — Module: Professionalisation. Part of gold-path.