Free tool

Trading plan builder

Answer the questions every trading plan has to settle, and get a one-page plan to print or save as a PDF. Your answers stay in this browser.

Name of the plan

Style

What I trade

Which stocksPrice, liquidity, index or sector limits. Anything you will never touch.

When the market lets me buyThe market conditions for new trades, and what you do when they are not met.

How I trade

The setupWhat has to be true before a stock is worth watching.

The entryThe exact trigger, and when you will not chase.

The stopWhere it goes, when it is placed, and when it moves.

Taking profitTargets, trailing stops, time limits.

Risk

Trading capital₹Risk per trade%Most open positionsLargest position% of capitalStop for the day afterlossesPause and review at% below the high

My routine

Before the market opens

After the close

The weekly reviewWhen, and which numbers you look at.

What I never doThe mistakes you have made before.

My trading plan

Swing trading

Your answers appear here as you type. Not sure where to start? Fill in the example and change it to how you trade.

Risk

Risk per trade: 1.0% of the account, ₹5,000 at ₹5,00,000. A trade that hits its stop costs this, never more.
At most 6 open positions; with all of them at their stops, 6.0% of the account is at risk.
No position bigger than 20% of the account (₹1,00,000).
If the account is 10% below its high, I stop opening trades and review the plan before going on.

Keep this where you trade. Change it on weekends, never during the session.

What a trading plan is for

A trading plan is the set of decisions you make once, calmly, so you don't make them in the middle of a trade: which stocks, when the market is good enough to buy, the exact entry, where the stop goes, how you take profit, how much you risk, and when you stop for the day. During the session you follow it. On weekends you review and change it.

The risk numbers matter most. The risk per trade decides how deep your drawdowns get, and the open-position limit decides how much can go wrong on a single bad day. With 1% a trade and six positions, a market-wide gap down through every stop costs about 6%. Check what your numbers mean over a hundred trades with the risk of ruin calculator, and turn them into a share count with the position size calculator.

A plan written in words can still be vague. Before trusting one with real money, test the rules on past data with the backtest checklist in mind, and keep a journal so the weekly review has numbers to look at.

Common questions

What should a trading plan include?

It should cover which stocks you trade, the market conditions for new trades, the setup, the exact entry, where the stop goes, how you take profit, the risk per trade, the most positions open at once, when you stop for the day, and a routine for before the open, after the close and a weekly review.

How much of my account should be at risk at once?

Multiply the risk per trade by the most positions you allow open. At 1% a trade and six positions, a market-wide gap down through every stop costs about 6% of the account in a day. Many swing traders keep the total open risk under 5% to 10%.

How often should I change my trading plan?

Change it outside market hours, after a review, never in the middle of a session. Judge a rule on a reasonable number of trades rather than one bad week. Even a strategy with an edge has long losing runs, and a plan changed after every loss never gets tested.