Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

One our trainees sent me an email over the weekend asking me to review his daily game plan.  I emailed, “Let’s discuss during our 11am post-Open recap.”  Today, with his other classmates, we discussed this “rough draft of his game plan”.  I cannot say this is my game plan.  There are some things I would add.  In our training program we offer a power point on how you might spend your day and there is more detail than the game plan below.  But what I love is the effort.  This is excellent work thinking about how you might spend your day so that you improve.  It’s the thousand little things done well consistently that make all the difference.

What would you add to this daily game plan?

Morning Stock Scan
– What’s Asia / Europe doing overnight? – Know all important time/announcements today.
– Price within 20 – 60$ NYSE
– Average ATR > 1
– Stocks that has a definitive support / resistance area pre market
– Gap Up/Down between 4 – 10%
– Even better if it’s gapping up/down above/below strong consolidation phase.
– Even better if market aligned – Market above resistance/below support
– Confirmed by morning call stocks and / or SMB radar
– Pick top 3 stocks and focus on 1 at a time – set alerts for rest.
Morning Plays (record the open)
-Pure momentum plays till near term support / resistance / mom slows down
– looking for 20 C – $1 moves, should be quick and with volume
– Know your real risk and set right stops. Not worth taking 20 c if risk is 20c.
-Be ready for reversals before 10:00 am.
-Look for strong flag patterns. – 1st stage to develop a trade to hold idea. – try to find these after 10:00 am.
– Best patterns for me: Strong Flags with very low pullbacks, Break resistance/support and retest, Gap up/down then break intraday support/resistance to fill gap or go higher to next level.
Mid-Day Plays
– Should already established 1 trade to hold ideas from the open.
– Watch your ticket avg – if not favorable then wait after 2:15 to look for favorable trades. – No need to force it now – it’ll ruin your ticket avg even more.
– if nothing develops or in a range day with low volume and volatility, stop trading immediately.
– Look for failures / break of trend, since its lunch hour. – be ready to take some off if currently holding a trade to hold.
– Sit out for most of hour or 2 till volume / volatility picks up.
– No need to scalp – churn up commissions and wasted energy during this time as breakouts doesn’t follow through most of the time.
– Search for ONLY high probability such as breaking news momo plays, (SMB Spike radar)
– Speak w/ other traders about what worked today and what didn’t. – (Remember the 3 strike rule)
Close Plays
– SMB radar ( trending up / down ) – enter at great prices, be very selective.
– try not to size up to add more risk before the close.
– Don’t fight the trend.
– By this time, you are either doing great or not. – Don’t force anything that market won’t offer.
After Close
– Review tape that’s recorded during the open.
– Find out the best and worst trades. – May not be based on P/L. – Be thorough w/ the execution file.
– Speak w/ other traders on the desk about their trading session. – learn from them.
– What to expect tomorrow?

Bella
One Good Trade