Daily trading plan and review template

The plan before the open and the review after the close are the two shortest and most useful habits in a trading journal. Together they take about ten minutes.

Before the open: the plan

Write these down before your first trade, in a few lines:

1. Market context. What happened overnight, and what is scheduled today: economic data, earnings, Fed speakers.
2. Levels. Prior day high and low, premarket high and low, and any levels your strategy uses.
3. Setups you will trade. Two or three at most, by name. If it is not on the list, it is not today's trade.
4. Maximum trades. A number, based on your usual day.
5. Maximum loss for the day. The point at which you stop, decided calmly in advance.
6. One thing to practise. For example: wait for the retest, or no entries in the first five minutes.

After the close: the review

1. Result. Net P&L and number of trades.
2. Plan adherence. Did you trade only the listed setups, stay inside the trade and loss limits, and follow your one thing?
3. Best and worst trade. What made each one good or bad, in one sentence.
4. Mistakes. Tag them on the trades.
5. Mood and discipline. A 1 to 5 score each. Over time, the pairing with results is revealing.
6. One change for tomorrow. Only one.

Using it with OptiqJournal

The Journal tab has a pre-market plan box, a post-market review box and mood and discipline scores for each day. The Coach tab reviews a day against your own last 60 days using fixed rules, for example more trades than usual, quick re-entries after losses or giving back an open profit, and suggests a short plan. One click saves that plan to the next trading day's plan box, ready for the morning.

Tips

• Keep it short enough that you will do it on a bad day.
• Plan from your own patterns, not from what happened to work yesterday.
• Review the week every Friday: read the five review notes in a row.

Start a free journal. Related: trading journal template and risk per trade.

Educational content. Not investment advice.