If trading has ever left you feeling confused, pressured, or embarrassed, start here. This checklist is not about predicting the market. It’s about making sure your decision is explainable, repeatable, and reviewable—so your trade history becomes something you can learn from, not something you avoid looking at.
1) What is the one-sentence reason for this trade?
If you can’t explain it in one sentence, you’re not trading a setup—you’re trading a feeling. Write the sentence before entering.
2) Where is the trade invalidated? (Where your idea is clearly wrong)
Not “I’ll see how it goes.” A real level. If price reaches it, the idea is wrong—exit rules matter more than entry opinions.
3) What is the risk, and is it consistent with your rules?
Before you enter, know:
your position size
your maximum acceptable loss
and whether this trade breaks your usual exposure limits
If you’re increasing size to “make it back,” that’s not strategy—that’s pressure.
4) What would make you not take this trade?
This question is underrated. Define one or two “no-trade conditions” (e.g., news volatility, unclear structure, spread too wide, missing confirmation). A good system includes the discipline to pass.
5) How will you judge this trade later—without rewriting the story?
Decide now how you’ll evaluate it after it closes. The cleanest approach is outcome-based:
it closed in profit, or
it closed at stop loss
Then review the decision quality over a sample, not on one trade.
If you want to go deeper, explore the Hub for additional sanity checks and real examples.
And if you’re comparing signals, bots, indicators, or copy trading, use the Hub’s AI basics section to understand what’s actually different.
Use this in 60 seconds (before every trade):
Write the one-sentence reason.
Mark the invalidation level.
Confirm the loss amount you’re willing to accept.
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