Morning Routine Day Trading Futures

Every professional day trader has one thing in common, they have mastered their morning routine.  For me personally, my morning routine is the most significant advantage I can give myself every day for many reasons.

First, my morning routine for day trading clears my mind of all the clutter from the night’s sleep, the previous day’s news, and any other biases or opinions that I may have formed previously.  Simply put, my morning routine helps me clear my mind.

Second, my morning routine gets me into the ‘rhythm of the market’ by giving me a specific checklist of things to accomplish.  Look at this, check on that, all the little things that I need to be watching each day are covered in this morning routine, and by the time I’m done looking over all the little things I am in my ‘zone’ and ready to trade with confidence and focus.

Third, day trading with a morning routine provides consistency, and this builds confidence, and allows a professional traders to see things the same each day, so that when things are different they can recognize it.  For example, I know that every morning I follow a simple process, and if that process notices something that is outside of the normal routine, that is a trading opportunity for me that day, and I want to further research that.  Just like in high school science class, when you do an experiment, the only way you can compare the results are if you have consistent variables, and my morning routine for day trading provides those consistencies that I need every day to compare 1 day to the next.

Wake up at 6am EST and I turn on my charts, let them load completely, and make sure I have all the market data loaded correctly.  You may chose to leave your computer running all day 24/7, I prefer to turn it off at night to save on power, and to make sure I am always using a clean slate.

While my charts are loading I make breakfast, a fruit smoothie with fresh fruit, egg proteins, Green Super Food, Chia Seeds, glutamine powder, and Sugar-Free Almond Milk.  Add a cup of Green Tea with some Agave Nectar to sweeten it.  I also bring with me a bowl of fruit to eat about half way through the morning to keep me going.

I am checking the news at this time, reading what happened overnight, what’s happening right now, and then what is going to happen later today.  I also want to know what TOMORROW’s news is going to be, because that will determine how today ends.  I use TradeTheNews.com for my real-time audio news data so I can HEAR what’s happening in the markets as it develops.  I also use ForexFactory.com and Econoday Calendars, which are free, but not as real-time as TradeTheNews.com

By 7am EST I have a good feel of the news as of right now, so I open my charts and begin to look at the technical price structures in the markets I want to trade.  I begin with the dollar index futures first because the dollar index will tell me more than anything else.  Is the dollar index trending?  Is it sideways?  Where are the major turning points on the dollar index today?  Find the major support and resistance on the 89range charts and then use the 13range chart for your short term trend.

By 8am EST I have the dollar index under control and now I start looking at the markets I want to trade today, such as crude, Euro, gold, and Russell.  I start with my ‘anchor chart’ first, which is my slowest timeframe.  I begin with the 144-range, the 89-range, even a daily chart is used sometimes to find the most important levels of support and resistance.  I’m looking for price structure in these charts, price wedge, price channel, double-top, sideways ranges, etc.  These price structures on the anchor charts will give me big clues for trading opportunities later today.

Now that I have my slower timeframes completed I have a strong sense of where I want to look for trades today, at the highs or the lows, never in the middles.  Now move to my faster timeframes, which is where we begin looking for more details.  I’m still looking for the same price structures on these faster timeframes, wedges, channels, etc, and I’m hoping that the structure I see on the faster timeframes will line up with the structures on the slower timeframe, or at least give me some areas where support and resistance ‘converge’ at one location, that is where the best trades will be.

On my faster timeframes some of the most important things I’m looking for is the 12am EST OPEN/CLOSE, the Previous high of day and previous low of day, the big money trigger line, high of day and low of day currently.  These will give me a sense of ‘location’ as it applies to the bigger picture today.  Are we above the highs from yesterday?  Are we inside the range?  Are we at the lows of today’s range?  Are we right at the OPEN?  All of these questions will help me to form an opinion on where the market is headed today, and how I may be able to get into some trades at the best locations.

In conclusion, my day trading morning routine seeks to get me started with consistency every day, it wakes me up, gets me in the zone and then walks me through multiple timeframes and different markets that will give me clues to where the best trades will be that day.  With those clues, I then apply my simple trading plan, which uses simple price patterns to entry, simple trade management to lock in profits and eliminate risk, and discipline to wait for the best opportunities to come to me today, never chasing after them.

I look forward to sharing this morning routine in great detail for day traders every day in our live trade room, see you there!

Draw trend lines for your morning routine