My Morning Routine For Trading

Hello Traders.

I got asked last week if I would mind outlining my typical daily routine. I never thought that would be of any interest to anyone, but here goes:

I wake up feeling charged and ready for the day at 4:30am…

Ok, not exactly true. My alarm goes off at 4:30am and I lie in bed for a good couple of minutes thinking about crying and wondering who sped up time throughout the night. I am most certainly not one of those odd few who are ‘morning people’.

I drag myself out of bed, feeling pretty annoyed that my girlfriend is still sound asleep. I step over my dog, who has contorted herself into an impossible yoga pose and is also fast asleep. Not for the first time I contemplate sending an email to the London Stock Exchange asking if they wouldn’t consider shifting their opening time to somewhere around midday.

I start to wake up once I grab a shower, and the coffee jolts me the rest of the way. I’m at the charts by 5am.

The analysis is done over the next half an hour. I already have a good idea of what is going on from the previous days trading, so I am really just looking for overnight changes and what that suggests for the day ahead. I also spend a fair bit of time picking out the strongest trading levels for the day, making sure they are the correct ones.

By 5:30am I am putting together the Aud Usd Review for subscribers and filling in the information on the login page. Between 6am and 6:30am I do the FTSE 100 also and get that all posted up and sent out.

By now it’s around 6:45am. My girlfriend is still snoring. My dog is still snoring.

I think my dog has picked up my ‘not a morning person’ personality, because the next part of my day is waking her up and taking her out for her morning walk. There is a lot of yawning, rolling onto her back, eyes opening and then closing again and sometimes a bout of sighing before she finally gets up and decides that yes, I am allowed to take her outside, but I had better make it quick!

Once I get home from her walk there’s just time for another coffee and a seat at the computer. I look for any changes in the Ftse 100 and the Aud Usd. I also scan through my emails, find the ones that need a fast response and get those out. The others I mentally file for later.

That’s the morning routine and I am usually ready to start trading at 7:30am. The actual trading day is so varied that attempting to put together a routine would be impossible!

But I suppose that is why I love trading so much. Every day is completely different. Some days I am finished before 10am, others by lunchtime and on some days I’ll wait the entire trading day and see no setups at all.

I hope you all have a great trading week!