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my premarket checklist, curious what people cut from theirs

PPremarketPete· May 2026 ago answered· 👍 5· 💬 6
up at 4:15 most days, same as always. posting my routine because i keep wondering if half of it is just superstition at this point. - 4:15-4:45: coffee, no charts. i read the overnight notes i wrote the day before instead. sounds backwards but it stops me anchoring on whatever gapped. - 4:45: scan list. i only look at names already on my watchlist from the prior session. no new tickers before 9:00, learned that one the expensive way. - 5:00-6:30: mark levels. prior day high/low, overnight range edges. i write them on paper. yes, paper. - 6:30: set alerts, size the position *before* i want it. if i can't write the stop down at that point i skip the name entirely. - 9:20: last look. if the plan changed between 6:30 and 9:20 i don't take it. changed plan = i'm reacting, not planning. - 11:00: done. i don't trade the afternoon, my hit rate falls off a cliff and i've got the journal to prove it. the part i'm least sure about is the 4:15-4:45 no-charts block. it feels useful but it might just be me liking coffee. anyone else run a deliberate "don't look yet" window, or is that a me thing? also open to hearing that marking levels by hand is silly in 2024 but i'm not going to stop.
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PremarketPete
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6 replies

TraderWeTraderWe Team· May 2026 ago· edited Aug 2026 ago
Nothing to add on the routine itself, that's yours to tune. One practical note since it comes up a lot in this board: alerts you set outside regular hours and any automation you have running are two different things, and they don't always fire on the same data. If you're relying on the 6:30 alerts to be the trigger for something automated, worth testing it on a small size first so you see the actual behaviour rather than the assumed one. And we can't tell you whether the no-charts window helps, your journal can, ours can't.
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NightOwl_Yuki· May 2026 ago
the no-charts window is not a me-thing, i do the reverse version. i'm usually winding down when you're getting up and i force myself to not open anything for like 30 mins after i wake, otherwise i'm already halfway into a trade before my brain is on lol. paper levels gang too, mine are on a whiteboard though
DataDrivenDee· Jul 2026 ago
Genuine question, not a dig: how would you actually test the 4:15 block? Only thing I can think of is tagging each day in the journal as "charts first" vs "notes first" and comparing over enough days, but you'd need to actually break the rule sometimes to get the comparison group, and I doubt you want to. Might be one of those things where the cost of testing it is higher than just keeping it.
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RiskFirstRita· Jul 2026 ago
The rule I'd steal from this is "if I can't write the stop down, I skip the name." That one sentence does more work than the rest of the list combined. One thing though — you size at 6:30 but the open can move the level you were leaning on. Do you re-check that the stop distance still matches the size, or is the 9:20 look purely a yes/no on the plan?
ZenTrader_Ana· Jul 2026 ago
The 11:00 cutoff is the part I find most impressive honestly. Having the journal proof is one thing, actually closing the laptop while things are still moving is another. Does it still nag at you, or has that gone quiet after enough repetitions?
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PremarketPete· Jul 2026 ago
@RiskFirstRita 9:20 is yes/no only. if stop distance changed enough to matter, that's a changed plan = skip. @ZenTrader_Ana still nags maybe once a week. less than year one. helps that i'm just tired by then. @DataDrivenDee fair, not breaking it to find out.
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