Read Time: 3 Minutes

I've been on vacation with my family so I didn't trade at all last week, and chances are, I won't be trading again until after we get back home next Wednesday.

This is the first family vacation that I've been on since I got serious about day trading and I wasn't sure if I was going to trade from my laptop or not. Ultimately, I decided that taking a break and enjoying time with my family was more important. 

Despite not trading, I've still been making progress as a trader. Each morning, I've been waking up early to study and refine my trading rules, routines, and goals. Then in the afternoons, I've been trying to spend at least 15-30 minutes reviewing the charts. 

Weekly Trading Stats:

Total Trades: 0

Winning Trades: 0

Losing Trades: 0

Win Rate: 0%

Weekly P&L: $0

Weekly ROI: 0%

Beginning Balance: $4,735.24

Ending Balance: $4,735.24

Weekly Trading Recap:

No trades made this week.

Educational Resource of the Week:

As I mentioned above, I've been using my time away to refine my trading rules, routines, and goals. To help with this, I've been watching a bunch of videos about goal setting, morning routines, and journaling routines. Two of my favorite videos were created by the same person on the SMB Capital YouTube channel.

The first video is titled "The Proven Process to Create Your Trading Goals"

The second video is titled "8-Figure Trader's Daily Trading Routine"

Learning Lesson of the Week:

For the learning lesson of the week, I thought I would share my current trading routines and rules:

Pre-Market Routine

• Add prior day’s high, low & close to the chart
• Add any relevant pre-market price levels to the chart
• Look at 1D, 1H & 15M charts to determine trend and key price levels
• Create a trading plan according to how I think SPY could move that day
• Check for planned economic releases/events that could impact trading
• Read trading rules, reminders & goals
• Write down a goal and any reminders that I want to focus on for the day
• Do 5-10 minutes of mindfulness/visualizations (ideally outside)

Intraday Trading Routine

• While trading, write down the details of any trade that was taken, considered, or attempted (include entry price, stop loss, profit targets, and setup).
• After each trade, stand up and go move around for a few minutes to mentally reset.
• Do regular self-awareness check-ins and assess whether I am flustered, angry, cocky, trading against the trend, etc. If I’m feeling overly emotional, I need to go outside, walk around, and take some deep breaths until I’m able to calm myself down.

Post-Trading Routine

• Journal every trade that I take and send to my trading mentor. Include entry price, stop loss, profit targets, setup, recap & takeaways.
• Analyze each trade that was considered or attempted, then write down my biggest takeaways.
• Tag and update prior day’s trades in TradeZella

Trading Rules

• On solo dad days, no entering new trades after my kids wake up.
• Aim for 1% risk per trade.
• No trading unless I have finished journaling the prior day’s trades and sent them to my trading mentor.
• Maximum of 5 trades per day
• No trading after 11:45 AM EST
• No moving “take profit” targets back as price approaches
• Maximum of one counter-trend trade per day
• All trades must be pre-planned with a pre-set limit order. No FOMO buying or chasing allowed
• No trading without completing my entire morning routine
• Break any of these rules and I have to do 25 pull-ups, 50 push-ups, and 100 air squats. Must be completed before the next trading day or else I can’t trade.
• If I have two rule breaks in one day, I have to take the next trading day off (i.e. if I place two trades after 9:45 AM MST).
• Spend 1-2 hours each Sunday reviewing charts, analyzing analytics, and setting weekly goals.

That's it for this week. Rather uneventful week but hopefully you've learned a thing or two from seeing my routines and rules. If you have questions about why I created a specific rule or why I've adopted something into my trading routine, please feel free to message me on Twitter.

Have a great Sunday!

- Eric