Free template

Trading Plan Template

Eight short sections. Fill them in once, print the page or save it as a PDF, and trade by your own written rules.

Trading Plan

Money Circle · money-circle.net/trading-plan-template · Name: ____________ Date: ____________

A trading plan is a short document you write when the market is closed, so that you do not have to decide everything while a position is open. It does not predict anything. It only makes your own rules explicit, so you can follow them and review them. Use the blank lines on paper, or type into a copy of it.

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1Markets and sessions

Fewer markets means fewer things to learn well. Pick the ones you can follow every day, and the hours when you are awake and focused.

Markets I trade (for example one index, one currency pair)Markets I do not tradeSession / time window (with time zone)Days I do not trade (for example during major news)

2Setup rules

A setup is a situation you recognise and have written down. If you cannot describe it in a few lines, it is not yet a rule.

Setup nameWhat must be true on the chart before I consider it (trend, level, pattern, timeframe)What makes me skip it (conflicting signals, news, low liquidity)

3Entry, stop and targets

Decide where you are wrong before you enter. The stop belongs where your idea is no longer valid, not where the loss feels comfortable.

Entry triggerStop-loss placementTarget 1Target 2 / how I trail the stop

Reward-to-risk I require before I take the trade (for example at least 1.5 : 1)

4Risk per trade

Risk is the amount you lose if the stop is hit, written as a percentage of your account. Position size follows from it, not the other way round.

Risk amount = account size × risk percentage.
Position size = risk amount ÷ distance from entry to stop (in price units, converted to your account currency).

Worked example (illustration only). Account: 10,000 in your account currency. Risk per trade: 1%, so the risk amount is 100. The stop is 20 points away from the entry and one point is worth 1 per unit. Position size = 100 ÷ (20 × 1) = 5 units. If the stop is hit you lose about 100, which is 1% of the account. If the stop were 40 points away, the same 1% would give a position of 2.5 units: wider stop, smaller position. The numbers are made up to show the arithmetic and are not a recommendation.

My account sizeMy risk per trade (% of account)Risk amount per tradeMaximum open trades at once

5Maximum daily loss and when to stop

A losing day gets worse when you trade to win it back. Set the limit now, while you are calm, and treat it as a rule rather than a suggestion.

Maximum daily loss (% of account)Maximum number of losing trades in a rowMaximum trades per dayMaximum weekly loss (% of account)

What I do when a limit is hit (close the platform, walk away, write a note in the journal)

6Pre-trade checklist

Go through it before every order. If one answer is no, you do not take the trade.

It matches one of my written setups.
I know my entry, my stop and my first target.
The reward-to-risk is at least what my plan requires.
My risk is no more than my plan allows, and the position size is calculated.
No major news event is due in my trading window.
I am within my daily loss limit and my trade count for the day.
I am rested and calm. I am not trying to win back a loss.

7Journal routine

Write down every trade, including the ones you skipped. Do it right after the trade while you still remember what you felt. Keep it short enough that you will actually do it.

Date	Market	Setup	Entry / stop / exit	Result in R*	Followed my plan? Why / why not

*R is one unit of your planned risk. A trade that wins twice what you risked is +2R; a stopped-out trade is about -1R. Tracking in R makes trades of different sizes comparable.

When I fill in the journal (for example straight after each trade and again at the end of the session)

8Weekly review

Once a week, at a fixed time, read your journal from top to bottom. You are looking for patterns in your behaviour, not for a verdict on a single trade.

How many trades followed the plan, and how many did not?
Which setup did I execute best? Which one do I keep getting wrong?
Did I break a daily limit? What was happening just before?
Which one rule do I change, add or remove next week? (Change one thing at a time.)

Week ofReview day and time

What went wellWhat I will change next week

Educational content, not financial advice. Trading involves a risk of loss, and a plan does not remove that risk. This template does not recommend any market, setup or position size. Disclaimer.

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