Your Trading Plan Needs These 7 Non-Negotiable Sections

[Fairman]

A genuine trading plan is a written document, not a vague mental collection of ideas about "how I like to trade." If you can't point to something in writing, you don't actually have a plan — you have a set of loosely held intentions that will evaporate the moment real emotional pressure enters the picture.

Here are the seven sections every serious plan needs, laid out in enough detail to actually be followed:

1) Markets and pairs traded — specifically which pairs you trade and, ideally, why those particular pairs suit your strategy and schedule.

2) Sessions and hours traded — the specific windows during which you're actively looking for setups, and equally important, the windows during which you deliberately stay out of the market.

3) Entry criteria — specific, mechanical, and detailed enough that someone else could follow them from the written description alone, not vague impressions like "when it looks good."

4) Exit criteria — covering both your stop-loss methodology and your profit target methodology, defined in advance rather than decided in the heat of an open trade.

5) Position sizing rules — your risk percentage per trade and the formula you use to translate that into an actual lot size.

6) Daily and weekly loss limits — the specific thresholds that, once hit, mean you stop trading regardless of how the next setup looks.

7) Review and journaling process — how and when you'll actually analyze your performance, rather than just accumulating data you never look at again.

If any single one of these sections is missing from your written plan, you don't yet have a complete plan — you have a partial one, and the missing piece is very often exactly where things eventually go wrong.

[LondonScalper]

Seven non-negotiables is a good spine. I’d only warn against making the plan so long that you stop opening it.

If a section never affects a yes/no before a trade, cut it. Plans fail from bloat as often as from missing pages.

Which of the seven do people skip most in practice — risk, news, or review?

[LondonScalper]

A genuine trading plan is a written document, not a vague mental collection of ideas

The seven sections are a solid spine. Follow-up from the desk: give each section a one-line gate you can answer in under five seconds before risk is on.

Examples: Markets — “EURUSD/GBPUSD only today.” Sessions — “08:10–11:30 London, no NY open fade.” Risk — “0.5% until +2R, then 0.75%.” If a section cannot produce a gate like that, it is essay material, not plan material.

I also keep the live sheet to two pages. Anything longer migrates to an appendix I review on Sundays, not during the open. Plans fail when they become novels you are ashamed to reopen.

News and “do not trade if” deserve equal weight to entries; most blow-ups I see are session/news failures, not missing EMA rules.

Which gate do you actually speak out loud before the first ticket — and which one only exists in the long document?

[PropScalpDesk]

A genuine trading plan is a written document, not a vague mental collection of ideas about how I like to trade.

If you cannot point to it, you have intentions — and intentions evaporate under pressure. The seven sections are the minimum adult set: markets, sessions, entries, exits, sizing, daily limits, and review process. I keep mine one page plus a blackout matrix for prop paths. Vague “when it looks good” entries fail the someone-else-could-follow test.

Frankfurt update rule: change the plan on the weekend, not mid-London. Funded addendum lists firm DD math and news restrictions explicitly so I am not negotiating with fine print at 14:30.

Plans do not remove hard days. They remove improvised ones.

Exits and daily-loss behaviour were empty longest for me. Entries are fun to write; loss behaviour is what you need when the morning turns. Write it before you need it.

Which section was empty longest when you first wrote yours — exits, or daily loss behaviour?

[PTScalper]

A genuine trading plan is a written document, not a vague mental collection of ideas about "how I like to trade." If you can't point to something in writing, you don't actually have a plan — you have a set of loosely held intentions that will evaporate the moment real emotional pressure enters the picture.

Here are the seven sections every serious plan needs, laid out in enough detail to actually be followed:

1) Markets and pairs traded — specifically which pairs you trade and, ideally, why those particular pairs suit your strategy and schedule.

2) Sessions and hours traded — the specific windows during which you're actively looking for setups, and equally important, the windows during which you deliberately stay out of the market.

3) Entry criteria — specific, mechanical, and detailed enough that someone else could follow them from the written description alone, not vague impressions like "when it looks good."

4) Exit criteria — covering both your stop-loss methodology and your profit target methodology, defined in advance rather than decided in the heat of an open trade.

5) Position sizing rules — your risk percentage per trade and the formula you use to translate that into an actual lot size.

6) Daily and weekly loss limits — the specific thresholds that, once hit, mean you stop trading regardless of how the next setup looks.

7) Review and journaling process — how and when you'll actually analyze your performance, rather than just accumulating data you never look at again.

If any single one of these sections is missing from your written plan, you don't yet have a complete plan — you have a partial one, and the missing piece is very often exactly where things eventually go wrong.

Fairman is completely right—relying on a "mental plan" in trading is like trying to navigate a storm with a map you left on shore. The moment real capital is on the line and adrenaline hits, loosely held intentions vanish and emotional impulses take the wheel. This seven-step checklist is the exact dividing line between treating the market like a casino and treating it like a business.

Since you didn't specify a particular indicator or strategy, I have built a Pine Script v5 Strategy Template that translates Fairman's structural rules directly into code. You can use this as the mechanical foundation for your specific setup.

[PTScalper]

Fairman's Blueprint: Pine Script Template

This script explicitly forces compliance with Sessions (Rule 2), Mechanical Entries (Rule 3), Pre-defined Exits (Rule 4), and Risk Limits (Rules 5 & 6).

Code: Select all

//@version=5
strategy("Fairman's Blueprint Strategy", overlay=true, initial_capital=10000, default_qty_type=strategy.percent_of_equity, default_qty_value=1)

// ==========================================
// RULE 2: SESSIONS AND HOURS TRADED
// ==========================================
session_time = input.session("0800-1100", title="Active Trading Window")
// Checks if the current bar is inside the allowed time window
in_session = not na(time(timeframe.period, session_time))
bgcolor(in_session ? color.new(color.blue, 95) : na, title="Session Background")

// ==========================================
// RULE 5 & 6: POSITION SIZING & LOSS LIMITS
// ==========================================
risk_per_trade = input.float(1.0, title="Risk % per Trade (Position Size)")
max_drawdown_limit = input.float(5.0, title="Max Drawdown Limit (%)")
// Automatically halts trading if equity drops by this percentage
strategy.risk.max_drawdown(max_drawdown_limit, strategy.percent_of_equity) 

// ==========================================
// RULE 3: ENTRY CRITERIA (Placeholder)
// Replace this with your specific mechanical setup
// ==========================================
fast_ema = ta.ema(close, 9)
slow_ema = ta.ema(close, 21)
plot(fast_ema, color=color.blue, title="Fast EMA")
plot(slow_ema, color=color.orange, title="Slow EMA")

// The entry must align with your mechanical trigger AND your trading session
long_setup = ta.crossover(fast_ema, slow_ema) and in_session
short_setup = ta.crossunder(fast_ema, slow_ema) and in_session

// ==========================================
// RULE 4: EXIT CRITERIA (Stop Loss & Take Profit)
// Defined in advance using Average True Range (ATR)
// ==========================================
atr = ta.atr(14)
sl_multiplier = input.float(1.5, title="Stop Loss (ATR Multiplier)")
tp_multiplier = input.float(3.0, title="Take Profit (ATR Multiplier)")

var float long_sl = na
var float long_tp = na
var float short_sl = na
var float short_tp = na

// ==========================================
// EXECUTION LOGIC
// ==========================================
if long_setup and strategy.position_size == 0
    strategy.entry("Long", strategy.long)
    long_sl := close - (atr * sl_multiplier)
    long_tp := close + (atr * tp_multiplier)

if short_setup and strategy.position_size == 0
    strategy.entry("Short", strategy.short)
    short_sl := close + (atr * sl_multiplier)
    short_tp := close - (atr * tp_multiplier)

if strategy.position_size > 0
    strategy.exit("Exit Long", from_entry="Long", stop=long_sl, limit=long_tp)

if strategy.position_size < 0
    strategy.exit("Exit Short", from_entry="Short", stop=short_sl, limit=short_tp)

[PTScalper]

How this enforces the plan:

The Session Filter (in_session): The code physically prevents orders from executing outside your designated time window, protecting you from overtrading in dead hours.

The Exits (strategy.exit): Your Stop Loss and Take Profit are calculated at the exact moment of entry using ATR volatility. There is no room for heat-of-the-moment adjustments.

The Risk Limit (strategy.risk.max_drawdown): If your account hits the predefined drawdown limit, the strategy automatically shuts down further entries, functioning as the hard stop Fairman demands.

[PTScalper]

This is a perfect example of a mechanical price action trigger. By stripping out lagging indicators and relying solely on the relationship between 15-minute candlestick structure and daily liquidity levels, the entry rule becomes completely objective.

I have updated the entry block to explicitly look for the sweep and the engulfing close. I also programmed the exact inverse logic for long setups (a sweep of the Previous Day's Low followed by a bullish engulfing) so the system can operate in both directions.

[PTScalper]

Pine Script:

Code: Select all

//@version=5
strategy("Fairman's Blueprint: Daily Sweep & Engulfing", overlay=true, initial_capital=10000, default_qty_type=strategy.percent_of_equity, default_qty_value=1)

// ==========================================
// RULE 2: SESSIONS AND HOURS TRADED
// ==========================================
session_time = input.session("0800-1100", title="Active Trading Window")
in_session = not na(time(timeframe.period, session_time))
bgcolor(in_session ? color.new(color.blue, 95) : na, title="Session Background")

// ==========================================
// RULE 5 & 6: POSITION SIZING & LOSS LIMITS
// ==========================================
risk_per_trade = input.float(1.0, title="Risk % per Trade (Position Size)")
max_drawdown_limit = input.float(5.0, title="Max Drawdown Limit (%)")
strategy.risk.max_drawdown(max_drawdown_limit, strategy.percent_of_equity) 

// ==========================================
// RULE 3: ENTRY CRITERIA (Daily Sweep & 15m Engulfing)
// ==========================================
// 1. Fetch Previous Day's High (PDH) and Low (PDL)
pdh = request.security(syminfo.tickerid, "D", high[1])
pdl = request.security(syminfo.tickerid, "D", low[1])

plot(pdh, color=color.red, style=plot.style_linebr, title="Previous Day High")
plot(pdl, color=color.green, style=plot.style_linebr, title="Previous Day Low")

// 2. Define Strict Engulfing Patterns
prev_bullish = close[1] > open[1]
curr_bearish = close < open
// Current candle opens at or above previous close, and closes at or below previous open
bearish_engulfing = prev_bullish and curr_bearish and (open >= close[1]) and (close <= open[1])

prev_bearish = close[1] < open[1]
curr_bullish = close > open
// Current candle opens at or below previous close, and closes at or above previous open
bullish_engulfing = prev_bearish and curr_bullish and (open <= close[1]) and (close >= open[1])

// 3. Define the Liquidity Sweep
// The 15m candle's high wick pierces the PDH
sweep_high = high > pdh
// The 15m candle's low wick pierces the PDL
sweep_low = low < pdl

// 4. Final Triggers
short_setup = sweep_high and bearish_engulfing and in_session
long_setup = sweep_low and bullish_engulfing and in_session

// Visual markers on the chart when a trigger fires
plotshape(short_setup, style=shape.triangledown, location=location.abovebar, color=color.red, size=size.small, title="Short Trigger")
plotshape(long_setup, style=shape.triangleup, location=location.belowbar, color=color.green, size=size.small, title="Long Trigger")

// ==========================================
// RULE 4: EXIT CRITERIA (ATR Based Placeholder)
// ==========================================
atr = ta.atr(14)
sl_multiplier = input.float(1.5, title="Stop Loss (ATR Multiplier)")
tp_multiplier = input.float(3.0, title="Take Profit (ATR Multiplier)")

var float long_sl = na
var float long_tp = na
var float short_sl = na
var float short_tp = na

// ==========================================
// EXECUTION LOGIC
// ==========================================
if long_setup and strategy.position_size == 0
    strategy.entry("Long", strategy.long)
    long_sl := close - (atr * sl_multiplier)
    long_tp := close + (atr * tp_multiplier)

if short_setup and strategy.position_size == 0
    strategy.entry("Short", strategy.short)
    short_sl := close + (atr * sl_multiplier)
    short_tp := close - (atr * tp_multiplier)

if strategy.position_size > 0
    strategy.exit("Exit Long", from_entry="Long", stop=long_sl, limit=long_tp)

if strategy.position_size < 0
    strategy.exit("Exit Short", from_entry="Short", stop=short_sl, limit=short_tp)

[PTScalper]

How the Entry Logic Works

request.security without lookahead: By pulling high[1] and low[1] from the Daily resolution, the script securely references yesterday's high and low without repainting on your live 15-minute chart.

Strict Engulfing Condition: The variables explicitly verify that the body of the previous 15-minute candle is completely consumed by the body of the current 15-minute candle.

The Sweep Check: The high > pdh condition mathematically verifies that the liquidity above the previous day's high was tapped by the wick during the formation of the engulfing candle.