Unit 4 · Level 2 · The Trader's Journal
The pre-trade checklist
A pre-trade checklist is 5 questions answered BEFORE the buy button: What's the setup? Where's my stop? What's the R:R? What's my size (1% rule)? What invalidates the idea? Thirty seconds that filter out almost every future regret.
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What you get asked
Order the checklist as a pro runs it
If any answer is missing or ugly, no trade. The checklist's power is mostly in the trades it prevents.
You can't articulate where your idea would be WRONG. What does the checklist say?
'Where am I wrong?' is the most professional question in trading. No answer = no edge = no trade.
The checklist's last item checks your ___, the variable most likely to break the other four.
A perfect setup traded by a tilted human becomes a bad trade. League 2's psychology lesson, now operationalized.
Match the checklist failure to the demon it exposes
The checklist is a demon detector. Resistance to filling it out IS the warning.
Honest math: the checklist takes 30 seconds and kills half your trade ideas. Is that a cost or a feature?
Remember the fees lesson: overtrading bleeds accounts. Fewer, better trades is a raise you give yourself. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Journaling, expectancy, the pre-trade checklist, and the weekly review: how skill compounds.