Building a pre-trade checklist with stops and levels

Name the action before the order exists

A trading plan or checklist is built to name, before entry, the actions to take if the position, automated exits, or the working connection fail. In the archive workflow, the filled template is a checklist-process: it converts rule inputs, market state, and execution constraints into one entry, exit, or abstention signal for the system's holding period.

The stop-loss is a loss or exposure bound set from account equity, volatility, and stop distance before entry, and kept in force for the life of the position. Support and resistance is repeatable OHLC structure on the working chart and a longer scale, used to form a falsifiable target, add-on, or adverse-move hypothesis.

Market-condition windows and the industry-condition count

Market, industry, and stock-trend lines on the form use the same close-to-close windows of one, two, and six months so completed trades can later be sorted by those three readings. The market-condition window is the close-to-close direction of a broad index over those spans, stored for that later sort.

Industry state is recorded by the industry-condition count: a tally of how many names in the same group are higher or lower over the same one-, two-, and six-month windows. The form also notes whether those names sit at pronounced support or resistance.

Earnings blackout and the dead-cat bounce

New buys are withheld inside the earnings blackout, a three-week window before a scheduled report. Longer-term holdings may be kept through the event. A six-week pre-report peak in weak names is flagged as untested.

A one-session drop of at least 15 percent is logged as a dead-cat bounce: a decline of that size, often 25 to 40 percent, followed by a short bounce and a later collapse that can undercut the first low. A second event is given as 26 percent within three months and 38 percent within six months. New buys are withheld for at least six months unless a tiny justified exception is written down.

Support and resistance on a longer scale

When the working chart is daily, the weekly or monthly scale is checked for support and resistance. That longer-scale reading is used to set a target, an add-on if price cheapens, and a pre-event estimate of how far an adverse move could run.

Stop-loss, size, and hesitation

For short-term trades the stop-loss price and the target are known before the order is sent. A mental stop is allowed only when the session is too fast for a working order, and only if that price is still honored.

Position size is scaled from portfolio size plus market and stock volatility. The form asks whether that size is large enough to cause hesitation after it is set.

What the trade log must capture

Each fill is written into the trade log with date, clock time, chart scale, trade type, size, hold duration, written buy reason, and any planned scale-in or scale-out prices so later sorts can show which conditions and holding periods actually produced results.