A pre-trade checklist for locked stops and trend pyramiding

The first gate is a written checklist-process

The archive workflow does not start from the idea that price looks low or high. It starts from a checklist-process: a pre-trade sequence of eligibility tests that decides whether to enter, stay out, hold, or exit, instead of acting on price level, impatience, or after-the-fact impulse.

Entry is withheld when the trend is unclear, when doubt is present, or when the only reason is that price looks low or high. Those are refusals, not later excuses. If the written tests fail, there is no order to improve.

Lock the stop-loss and the capital-bound

If the checklist still allows a trade, the next requirement is mechanical. Every trade is required to carry a stop-loss, and that stop is not cancelled after the position is open. A stop-loss is an order that bounds the loss on a position and stays in force after entry rather than being removed once the trade is open.

The same gate sets a capital-bound: a hard limit on how much of trading capital may be exposed in any one position. Exposure on any one trade is capped so that no more than 10% of trading capital is placed at risk. The archive workflow does not treat the stop-loss and the capital-bound as optional once the trade is live.

Pyramiding waits for a broken distribution-zone

Additional size is added only after price has crossed resistance and broken distribution zones, and only in markets that already show a strong trend. Pyramiding, in this workflow, means adding size to an existing position only after price has crossed resistance, broken a prior distribution-zone, and the market already shows a strong trend.

A distribution-zone is a prior area of supply that must already be broken before additional size is considered. A losing position is neither averaged nor hedged. Extra size is not a way to repair a position that has already failed the original case.

Hold, reduce, and do not invent a reason

A position is not closed or changed without a stated reason. Impatience, anxiety from waiting, and frequent in-and-out activity are treated as invalid reasons. An incorrect exit after either a wrong or a right entry is treated as a second error to avoid.

After the first loss, trading activity is reduced rather than increased. The checklist-process still applies after entry: it can keep the trader out, keep the position unchanged, or allow an exit only when a stated reason exists.