Drawer

Course Project, Day Trading for Beginners

Design your trading plan based on the knowledge and lessons that you have learned from the course. This trading plan should be your starting point for trading and it should be what you compare all trading opportunities against. If the trade does not fit in your trading plan, don’t take the trade. 

Print off this page and hand write your answers below each question. 

  • How are you going to calculate your position size?
    - I will risk no more than 2% so for a $10,000 portfolio, I will take positions no greater than $200. Once I have some practice with fake money, I will begin with only $5000 with a maximum position of $100. Once I have proven profitable in practice and with a small portfolio, I may reevaluate my risk, but for now I plan on playing it very safe.
  • How do you determine where to put your stop loss?
    - I would put my stop loss at at where I know that my hypothesis would be proven wrong. For example if I am going long, I would put my initial stop loss at what I think the level of support is. If it goes below that, then I know that my analysis was wrong and I need to get out of that trade because it is not going according to my plan. It is better to get out early than to not know what you are doing and lose lots of money.
  • What is the minimum Risk:Reward ratio that you are willing to accept?
     - I would be willing to accept a R:R ratio of 1:2 but I would shoot for better than that if I could. 
  • How many bad trades in 1 day before you walk away?
    - I would walk away after three bad trades. They do not need to be consecutive, three and I am out. The more experience I get, I might change that to three consecutive bad trades but I am a slow and steady kind of person.
  • Where do you plan to journal your trades?
    - I plan on using google sheets, and then moving to a paid journal where I can have the convenience of having my data graphed for me so I can better understand my good and bad habits.
  • What is your morning routine? 
      1. Wake up, shower, brush teeth, get dressed
      2. Have a hot caffeinated beverage
      3. High protein breakfast
      4. Send any texts or emails that came up before market open and then place my phone out of sight and out of reach.
      5. Check the news and look for catalysts, earnings, and events (war, announcements, disasters)
      6. Check the after hours and pre market trades
      7. Check the indices 
      8. Sum up and write out my game plan. Are we bullish/bearish? Who am I watching today? Remember to remove all emotions.
      9. Start trading 
  • What exchanges/markets are you going to trade?
    - I plan on trading in technology, energy, and automotive. The exchanges I am planning on trading is the NYSE and NASDAQ
  • Where are you going to get news about how those markets are doing?
    - I plan on using Earnings Whispers to see what major players are announcing earnings, Yahoo Finance and CNBC to find catalysts, I also plan on joining a discord that creates daily schedules for notable events of that day.
  • Do you have a broad market watchlist and a sector watchlist setup so you can see how things are doing in the big picture?
    - Yes, I plan on making watchlists divided into various sectors and ETF watch lists. I would also watch the indices to see how the market as a whole is moving. Some companies like Apple follow them rather closely.
  • Where are you going to check to see if there is any economic news happening today?
    - As stated earlier CNBC and Yahoo Finance are my go-to.
  • What indices are you going to look at to determine market direction?
    - DJI, NYA, GSPC, and VIX (inverse) 
  • What indicators are you going to use on your chart?
    - Volume seems to be a good indicator of whether or not to take a position, and the MACD intersections can be a good indicator on going long or short.
  • What are the main technical setups that you are going to be looking for?
    - I really like support and resistance levels to determine if a new trend or breakout has been established. Also key levels from the previous 6 months to see if there are other, more historical supports and resistances.
  • Have you set time aside for you to review your trading performance and try to improve your trading plan? 

    - Evenings are for earnings and for analysis of my personal trading day. When I get some more data for my journal, looking for patterns can also give me an idea of how to enhance my performance and identify areas of weakness.