TCP pre-trade checklist
Three checks before you click buy or sell. Use them on any market and any timeframe. Educational only — not a trade signal and not a promise you will pass an evaluation.
Most impulsive trades skip the plan. This checklist slows you down just enough to answer three questions you can write on paper. Hypothetical numbers, when you use any, should be labelled as hypothetical. Check the live contract specification and your firm’s current rules before you size a real order.
- Level first. Did you mark the level before price got there? A line drawn after the bounce is an explanation, not a plan. If you cannot point to the level on the chart from earlier in the session (or from your prepared map), skip the trade.
- Invalidation in price. Write the price where the idea is clearly wrong. If that print hits, you exit. Do not move the line to stay in the trade. A stop is an order type, not a fill guarantee in a fast market.
- Size from that distance. Choose a maximum dollar risk first (a hypothetical example: $200). Measure the stop distance, multiply by the contract’s value per point from the exchange spec, then divide and round down. Wider stop, smaller size. Same risk budget, different stop, different size.
How to use it
- Write the three answers before you arm the order: level, invalidation price, size.
- If any answer is blank, you do not have a trade yet.
- After a win or a loss, do not raise the risk budget because of how you feel.
What this is not
It is not a strategy, a signal service, or a guarantee. It does not replace your firm’s rulebook (daily loss, end-of-day max loss, consistency, news windows). If a rule and this checklist ever conflict, the rule wins.
More free lessons: order-flow video library and prop-firm foundations.
Published 10 November 2026. Educational only. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss. Prop firm evaluations are paid products; most participants never receive a payout.
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