# Trading plan

A plan is not a prediction. It is a set of decisions made while calm, so that
fewer decisions have to be made while not calm.

Keep it to one page. A plan you cannot recite is a document, not a plan.

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## 1. What I trade

**Instruments:**
_(list them — three is usually better than thirty)_

**Sessions / hours:**

**What I do NOT trade:**
_(the more specific this is, the more useful the whole plan becomes)_

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## 2. My setups

Give each one a short name. You will use these names in your journal, and a
fixed list is what makes "which setup actually makes money" answerable later.

### Setup A — name:

- **What has to be true before I look:**
- **The trigger to enter:**
- **Where the stop goes, and why there:**
- **Where I take profit, and why there:**
- **What invalidates it before entry:**

### Setup B — name:

- **What has to be true before I look:**
- **The trigger to enter:**
- **Where the stop goes, and why there:**
- **Where I take profit, and why there:**
- **What invalidates it before entry:**

_If a trade does not fit a setup on this list, it is not a trade. Write it down
anyway — trades that fit nothing are the most informative entries you will make._

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## 3. Risk

- **Risk per trade (% of account):**
- **Maximum open risk at any moment:**
- **Maximum loss in one day — and what happens when I hit it:**
- **Maximum loss in one week:**
- **When I reduce size:**
- **When I increase size:**

The daily loss limit is the only line here that has to be automatic. A limit
you decide about in the moment is not a limit.

**Expected worst run.** At a win rate of ____%, a losing streak of about ____
trades is normal rather than exceptional. My size must survive it.

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## 4. Rules for after a loss

_Written now, because these are the decisions that get made worst later._

- **Minimum pause before the next trade:**
- **Maximum size on the next trade:**
- **After how many consecutive losses do I stop for the day:**
- **What I do instead of trading during that pause:**

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## 5. Review

- **After each session (5 min):** did I follow the plan? Which trades broke it?
- **Weekly (20 min):** behaviour — busy days, pauses after losses, size drift.
- **Monthly / per 100 trades (1 hour):** the method itself. This is the only
  interval where changing the plan is allowed.

**One change per review. Not five.**

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## 6. What would make me stop trading this plan

_(Define it now. Deciding this mid-drawdown is how plans get abandoned at the
worst possible moment.)_

- Number of trades before I judge it:
- Result that would make me stop:
- Result that would make me increase size:

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_Template from TradersWatcher — https://traderswatcher.com/free_
_Free to copy, change and use. No attribution needed._