Daily Schedule - January 2011

Daily structure is critical to keep you focused on your immediate and long-term goals.  Just like every trader should construct a detailed trading plan, traders should also construct a daily plan that makes the best use of their time and helps direct their energy and efforts.  Below is my current daily schedule that will be updated as necessary:

• 6:00am - Wake up
• 6:00-6:30am - Morning workout
• 6:30-7:00am - Shower, dress, eat breakfast
• 7:00-7:30am - Read trading blogs, archive important posts, scan news headlines
• 7:30-7:45am - Prepare trading watchlists for the day, and setup backtest research models (if necessary)
• 7:45-8:15am - Commute to work
• 8:15am - Begin work for the day, run backtest models, follow SPY and IWM activity
• 9:30am - Run morning breakout scans
• 12:00-12:30pm - Lunch, read news items, read trading blogs, archive important posts, research stocks that are up more than 25% in the past 20 days, select momentum swing trade candidates
• 12:30pm - Continue work, run backtest models, follow SPY and IWM activity
• 2:45pm - Run trading strategy scans and simulate trade orders
• 5:00pm - Archive important news events, update market breadth indicators
• 5:15pm - Document results for trading strategies
• 5:30-6:15pm - Commute home
• 6:15-7:00pm - Evening workout (optional)
• 7:00-7:30pm - Shower, dress, eat dinner
• 7:30-8:00pm - Create Market Report and post daily accomplishments
• 8:00-10:00pm - Miscellaneous activities (work on blog, improve spreadsheets, read, martial arts, etc.)
• 10:30pm - Go to sleep

Daily News and Event Information:

• Earnings Whispers daily earnings guidance email update
• Briefing.com Stocks In Play at Yahoo Finance
• Briefing. com Story Stocks at Yahoo Finance
• Briefing.com Short Stories at Yahoo Finance
• Briefing.com Tech Stocks at Yahoo Finance
• Zack's Investment Research - Today's Earnings (EPS) and Earnings Surprises
• Beacon Equity Research stock and market news RSS feed
• Automated daily Google email alert for "beats revenues earnings EPS profit"

I archive any important news or event information.  This information is later used in my research to help identify what items cause a stock to move up or down, allowing me to focus more of my energy on the news items that have a more significant impact.

Throughout the day, I monitor the behavior of the market using FreeStockCharts.com.  I follow the intraday performance  of IWM and SPY, noting volume and technical patterns.  I have set up a watchlist to track the intraday performance of several markets including DIA, EFA, EUR/USD, GLD, IWM, OIL, QQQQ, SPY, TLT, VIX--X.  I monitor each of these for daily percent change, volume buzz, and their relationship to their 5, 10, 20, and 50 day moving average.  I will also monitor the number of stocks up or down 4% on the day as a gauge of market strength or weakness.

Several times a day, beginning at 9:30am,  I scan the market using TeleChart 2007 Gold.  I scan the market searching for momentum swing trade ideas that I can enter before the end of the day.  Often I find 1-5 good trading candidates that I can buy during lunch, then I can monitor their performance throughout the rest of the day. If applicable, I run backtests using StockFinder 5.0 to research trading strategies on my laptop throughout the day.

During lunch, I review any significant news items from the sources specified above.  I also use my lunch time to read through any interesting trading blog posts and archive them if I believe the post can help me in the future. I use TeleChart to review the performance of stocks that are up more than 25% in the past 20 days and identify any common characteristics that may help me identify such opportunities in the future.  Finally, I review my market scans and select good momentum swing trade candidates to monitor for the rest of the day, tracking their performance over the next couple of weeks.

Shortly before close, I run my final trading scans to determine good swing trading candidates to buy.  I also determine stocks to track for my daily short term trading strategy.  The strategy determines whether the short term behavior of the market is in a mean reversion or trending state, then it selects 20 stocks that are the best candidates to either buy or short on that day.  This is a paper traded black box strategy that holds stocks for only one day.

In the evening, I create the Market Report to summarize the behavior of each industry and help me determine the overall health of the market.  I review and archive trading blog posts, then post a list of my daily accomplishments on this blog.  I use the rest of the evening to research trading ideas or read trading books.