If you have just completed PTS and are starting your trading plan and you have no idea where to start here's a tip.
What market environments will you trade?
Define how you will handle different market environments. Will your swing trades work very well in a sideways market? Probably not. You may want to scale up or down depending on what the market is doing. This section probably won't contain much when you are starting out since you don't really have the data to define your market. As you gain experience you can work on this area.
Example:
Problem: We've been experiencing a market recent where just about every entry we take in the first 5 minutes stops out and then reverses and goes higher eventually working if we take the entry a second time.
Solution: After a few weeks of this I have revised my plan to not trade in the first 5 minutes. It has made a difference. I have avoided many of those stop outs the last two weeks. Except one where I didn't follow my plan yesterday. :-)
What trading instruments you use (stock, options, etc)?
If you are trading multiple instruments, when defining your strategies, risk management, etc. I would recommend having a separate section for each type. You'll obviously have different rules for stock and options as an example. You might even consider having separate plans but I don't think it's necessary to go that far but I do know people that prefer to do that.
For more information on trading plans:
https://newtradersupportnetwork.locals.com/post/270588/the-dreaded-trading-plan
2 trades for me today with +1.5R total
1st Trade QCOM +2R
148.39/149.97 exit 143.25
12% gap down under pivot support and 50ma after a strong daily double top rejection,. I took it on a congestion breakdown with a fairly wide stop, leaving my 2R target 50c over its ATR, slow but consistent move down with great RW, hit my target on the penny before it bounced.
2nd Trade AQB -0.5R
9.40/9.70 exit 9.56
I rarely trade stocks under $10 and even more rarely short them. I liked this daily chart as it broke its uptrend channel and stayed under a strong 9.50 support line enough room to its daily 50ma. I entered after a pullback with a fairly wide stop but only 1/3 of its ATR used at the time. It failed to break down with the strong market open and stayed in a narrow range.
I actually broke my plan with this trade as I lowered my stop to a pivot where price made a big bounce earlier at 11am with a large seller sitting there. My thought was that if it breaks that level again then it will likely...
1 trade for (-1R)
I took a BD on QCOM. I was worried about the target being close to the daily range, so I took a tighter stop on the 2 min chart. I am looking through PTS right now, most of the examples have 2 options for where to put your stop. It looks to me like one of the stops would be at the bottom of the main consolidation area, and the other at the bottom of where there has been a shakeout or turnaround bar (if there has been one). Due to the daily range I took the tighter one on this. In hindsight it seems obvious to take the wider stop, but in the moment it looked ok.
I was then looking at the 15 min 3BP on QCOM, but the reason I used a tighter stop in the first place was because of the range. The 15 min 3BP would have needed to have gone even further than the wider stop on the 2 min BD, so I didn't take it.
