How to write a trading plan you will actually follow at 9:45 a.m.

A trading plan is a one-page set of rules, written before the session, that says what you trade, when, which setups you take, how much you risk and when you stop for the day. To write one, fill in six sections: goals and limits, market and session, setups, risk, routine and review. Below you get each section, a filled-in plan for an intraday MNQ trader and the sample size you need before changing it.

What should a trading plan include?

A trading plan is a set of decisions you make while calm, so you do not have to make them while NQ moves ten points in four seconds. The test for every line: after the session, can you answer "did I follow this?" with yes or no? "Be patient" fails. "No entry before 9:45 a.m. New York time" passes. Write the six sections in this order, because each depends on the one before.

1. Goals and limits

Set process goals, not money goals. "Make 500 dollars a week" is outside your control; "follow every rule on 95 of my next 100 trades" is inside it. Then write the account limit: the drawdown at which you stop trading live and return to simulation, for example 20% below your starting balance.

2. Market and session

One market, one session: which contract (NQ or MNQ, front month), which hours, which days you skip. The New York cash open at 9:30 a.m. ET brings the most volume, so many intraday traders work only the first 90 minutes. Add the calendar rule: what you do around scheduled data such as CPI at 8:30 a.m. or releases at 10:00 a.m.

3. Setups with entry and exit rules

Each setup gets five lines: the context where it is valid, the exact trigger, where the stop goes and why, the target, and when you skip it. Beginners should write one or two setups, not six.

4. Risk per trade and daily loss limit

Size follows from the stop: contracts = dollar risk ÷ (stop in points × dollars per point). A common guideline is to risk 0.5% to 1% of the account per trade, with a daily loss limit of two or three times that. The risk management guide for beginners explains why size comes before the entry. Set the daily limit in your platform if it allows it, so the rule does not depend on willpower.

5. Routine

Before the open: mark the previous day's high, low and close, the overnight high and low, and check the calendar. During the session: a short checklist before every entry. After the close: log every trade with a screenshot.

6. Review

Ten minutes a day to log, thirty on Friday to read the week, a decision point every 50 trades. Track trades taken, percentage inside the rules, average result in R (profit or loss divided by the amount risked) and the largest drawdown.

Trading plan example: an intraday MNQ plan, filled in

A complete plan for a hypothetical trader with a 5,000 dollar account who trades the Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 (MNQ, 2 dollars per point) in the New York morning. The numbers illustrate the format, not a recommendation.

The size rule in action. Setup A triggers with a 14-point stop: 14 × 2 = 28 dollars per MNQ, and 50 ÷ 28 = 1.78, so one contract. With an 8-point stop: 16 dollars per contract, 50 ÷ 16 = 3.1, so three contracts, also the cap. The same 14-point stop on one full-size NQ (20 dollars per point) would risk 280 dollars, 5.6% of this account. Writing the plan shows you it cannot be followed in NQ before the market does.

Before every entry, the trader reads five questions. Any "no" means no trade:

1. Is it between 9:45 and 11:30 a.m., and away from a scheduled release?
2. Is this exactly Setup A or Setup B, with every condition met?
3. Is the stop placed at a level, and is the size calculated from it?
4. Am I under the daily loss limit and under four trades?
5. Is the target at least 2R away before the next obvious level?

How to test a trading plan before you risk money

An untested plan is a guess with formatting. Test it in four stages, moving on only when the current one passes.

1. Replay 30 to 50 past sessions. Use bar replay and mark every setup that met all the rules, with its result in R. Most traders find their "A setup" appears far less often than they thought.
2. Forward test 50 trades in a simulator with the exact size, hours and daily limit. The target is adherence: 48 of the 50 trades fully inside the rules.
3. Add pressure. Rules that hold in a quiet replay can break when a clock runs and a limit can remove you. Short timed rounds with a hard loss limit test exactly that.
4. Go live at minimum size. One MNQ for the next 20 to 50 trades, same rules. A big drop in adherence compared with the simulator is a psychology problem, not a plan problem.

In BullHero each tournament round lasts 2:30 or 3 minutes, fills come at the ask or the bid with spread and commission, and each room has a maximum loss per round (1,000 dollars of play money in ROOKIE) that knocks you out. That stress-tests "only Setup A or B" and "stop at the limit". It cannot test your edge on real NQ, since the prices come from a model, so keep stage 4.

When to change your trading plan: sample size first

The surest way to ruin a good plan is to edit it after three losses. Small samples lie:

• Win rate noise. If you win 10 of 20 trades, the true win rate could plausibly be anywhere from about 28% to 72% (a 95% interval). After 100 trades the band narrows to roughly plus or minus 10 points.
• Losing streaks are normal. A setup that wins 45% of the time has about a 92% chance of five losses in a row somewhere in 100 trades, and roughly even odds of seven in a row.
• Positive expectancy can lose for weeks. A 40% win rate with average wins of 2R and losses of 1R gives 0.4 × 2 minus 0.6 × 1 = +0.2R per trade: positive, yet thin enough for a bad month.

Use these rules for changes:

1. Check adherence first. If more than one trade in ten broke a rule, the results measure you, not the plan.
2. Review at 50 trades, decide at 100. In between, only note ideas.
3. Change one variable at a time (the stop rule, or the target, or the session) and restart the count.
4. Change immediately only when a risk rule fails, a rule proves impossible to check, or the market itself changes (contract, session, volatility far beyond your plan).

Trading plan vs trading journal

The plan is what you intend to do; the journal is what you did. They only work together if their fields match.

Name setups the same way in both, so filtering "Setup B" in the journal gives its real win rate and average R. For the logging side, see how to keep a trading journal.

Five mistakes that make a trading plan useless

• Too long. Nobody reads ten pages at 9:44 a.m. One page, plus the checklist on a sticky note.
• Rules you cannot check. "Trade with the trend" means nothing until you define it, for example price above VWAP with higher highs for 30 minutes.
• Daily money targets. "200 dollars a day" turns a quiet session into a reason to force entries, the shortest road to overtrading.
• No rules for not trading. Skip conditions (data releases, the daily limit, a stop too wide) matter as much as entries.
• Ignoring the gap between knowing and doing. Most plans fail at execution, not design. If you follow your rules in simulation and break them live, read why traders fail with real money and not in demo. If the whole process still feels unclear, start with the order to learn trading from scratch.

Frequently asked questions

BullHero is a game played with play money on prices generated by a mathematical model; it is not a broker and gives no access to real markets. This article is for education only and is not financial advice.