Pre-Trade Checklist
The questions you meant to ask before clicking buy, asked while you are still calm. Build your own list, tick it before every entry, and get a clear signal only when all of it passes.
By Joey van Diest, founder and editorUpdated
Your checklist
Why a checklist and not just discipline
The case for checklists does not rest on the idea that traders are careless. It rests on the opposite: that experienced people under time pressure skip steps precisely because those steps are familiar. Aviation and surgery adopted them for that reason, and the measured reductions in error were large. Trading has the same structure, a repeated procedure carried out under time pressure with real consequences, which is why the transfer is plausible even though no study proves a checklist makes anyone profitable.
What it realistically prevents is a specific, expensive category of mistake. Entering without a stop. Sizing by feel because the setup looked obvious. Taking a trade that is not actually one of your setups. Adding to a loser. Trading immediately after a loss, when the impulse to make it back is strongest and judgement is worst. None of those is a failure of knowledge, every trader knows better, and that is exactly the kind of error a written list catches.
Keep it short and make it fail sometimes
A checklist is working when it occasionally stops you. If yours has never once prevented a trade, it is decoration: the items are either too vague to fail or you are ticking them automatically. Vague items are the usual culprit, "the setup looks good" cannot fail, while "price closed above the level on the higher timeframe" can. Prefer items with a factual answer, keep the list under about ten, and delete anything that has never caught you.
The natural companion is the record. When an item does stop you, or when you override it and the trade goes badly, that belongs in thetrading journalas a note against the trade, because a pattern of overrides on one setup is a real finding. For the sizing item specifically, theposition size calculatorturns a stop distance into an actual number, which is what makes "size is correct" a question with a checkable answer rather than a feeling.
Frequently asked questions
- Do checklists actually work?
- They have a strong record in aviation and surgery, where the evidence is that they cut error rates substantially by catching the routine steps experts skip precisely because they are routine. Trading is not surgery and no controlled study says a checklist makes you profitable. What it plausibly does is reduce a specific category of avoidable mistake: entering without a stop, sizing by feel, trading a setup you do not actually take, or chasing after a loss. Those are the errors that make a decent strategy unprofitable.
- How many items should it have?
- Few enough that you genuinely read them. A checklist of twenty items becomes wallpaper within a week and gets ticked reflexively, which is worse than none because it manufactures false confidence. Aviation checklists for critical phases are typically under ten items. Keep the ones that have actually caught you out, and delete anything you have never once failed.
- Where is my checklist stored?
- In this browser only, in localStorage. It is never uploaded, and there is no account. Clearing site data will remove it, so if you have built a checklist you care about, use the share link to keep a copy: it encodes the whole checklist in the URL, so bookmarking or emailing that link to yourself is a backup.
- Should the checklist be the same for every setup?
- The risk items should be, since sizing, stop placement and account exposure apply regardless. The context items usually differ by strategy, so many traders keep one core list and a couple of setup-specific additions. If you find yourself failing the same item repeatedly on one strategy, that is worth logging in the journal rather than removing from the list.
Method and limitations
Your checklist is stored in this browser using localStorage and is never uploaded; there is no account and no server component. Clearing site data will remove it, so use the share link as a backup, it encodes the entire checklist in the URL. Checklists have a well-documented record of reducing procedural error in aviation and medicine; no equivalent evidence exists that one improves trading returns, and this page does not claim otherwise. It is a discipline aid, not trading advice.
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us or stored.
For general information and education only. This is not financial advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Trading and investing carry risk, including the risk of losing more than your initial outlay. Always verify figures against your broker or the original source before acting on them.
Spotted an error? Email[email protected]and it will be corrected. Maintained byJoey van Diest.