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A plan for each day

Friday, 19 November 2010 12:31

As I discuss trading with my students I find that I not only convey really good trading advice but it always helps me to reinforce my own good habits. Last night I was talking to a student and I was teaching about how I think about my day before the day gets started and how I would most like to envision my day playing out.

I never make a trade without knowing all of the facts before I make the trade such as what is my maximum share size, what my entry is and what my potential risk could be. Once I have processed all of that information based on my methodology I decide if it is a trade I would like to take or to leave on the side until it becomes a better trade.

Then the conversation moved over to how I envision my day playing out. At the 9:30 am open I like to take the first 15-20 minutes and make a few quick scalps working on building up my profits for the day. This time frame always produces a lot of volatility and is a great place for a trader with my skill set to do well. Once the action starts to calm down near 10 am, I will then start to look for trades that I can build into with more of a position. This is based on my pivots and seeing a short term trend developing and how it may play out. On a good day, these positions can last until 11:30 am and then I most likely wind down, get lunch and then plan my afternoon.

The afternoon gets tricky as to when volumes really start to pick up so I can't put a solid time on it, but it is almost never pre 1:30 pm. Here I will look to continue on the positions I exited before lunch and see how they have fared over time, do I want to get back in?, do I want to avoid? and of course this all is planned out ahead of time. This is also the time I reflect on my P&L and calculate my max give back for the day and what my target for the rest of the day looks like.

Once 3:30 pm comes my day is winding down, my stop risk gets tighter and focus on more short scalp trades or exiting my positions from earlier in the day. This has been my day for many years, this is what I work to achieve, it does not always play out this way but by having an idea of what my plan is and what my normal day looks like there are no surprises to me and that is a key ingredient to being a successful trader.