Trading Plan Template: The 8-Section Plan That Actually Gets Used

Most trading plans get written once, saved to a desktop folder, and never opened again. That's because they were built like business plans, long documents written for an imaginary investor.

A trading plan that actually works is short, scannable, and lives next to your charts. Here are the 8 sections it needs, with real examples, and the template you can copy.

Why most trading plans fail

Common failures:

• Too vague: "I will use price action and good risk management", meaningless
• Too long: 12-page PDFs nobody re-reads after writing
• No review trigger: nothing forces you to update it when results change
• Mixed timeframes: rules for scalping and swing trading on the same page, contradicting each other

A good plan answers one question on demand: "should I take this trade right now?" If your plan can't answer that in under 30 seconds, it's not a plan, it's a document.

The 8 sections that matter

1. Account & risk envelope

Hard numbers, no narrative.

Account: FTMO $100,000 (funded)
Max daily loss: $5,000 (5%)
Max overall loss: $10,000 (10%)
Risk per trade: $500 (0.5%)
Max open trades: 2
Max correlated exposure: $1,000 (1%)
Max trades per day: 4
Stop trading for the day after: 2 consecutive losses

This section is the dashboard. Glance at it before every trade.

2. Markets traded

Be specific. "Forex" isn't a market, EUR/USD is.

Primary: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, XAU/USD (gold), NAS100
Secondary (only during overlap session): USD/JPY, US30
Banned: anything with daily ATR > $80 unless I cut size 50%
Sessions: London open 08:00-10:00 UK, NY open 14:30-16:30 UK

If a market isn't on the list, you don't trade it. The discipline is in the boundary.

3. Setups & entry criteria

The longest section, but written as checklists not paragraphs.

Setup A, London Breakout (EUR/USD, GBP/USD only)
Entry conditions (ALL required):
  [ ] Asian range identified, < 35 pips for EUR, < 50 for GBP
  [ ] Breakout candle closes outside range with body > 60% of candle
  [ ] Retest of broken level within 2 candles
  [ ] DXY confirming direction (e.g. EUR long = DXY weak)
Entry: limit order at retest level
Stop: 5 pips beyond breakout candle wick
Target: 2R or London range = 2R, whichever is closer
Time-stop: close at 12:00 UK regardless

Setup B, NY Pullback (NAS100, US30)
Entry conditions (ALL required):
  [ ] 5-min trend confirmed (3 higher highs or 3 lower lows)
  [ ] Pullback to 21 EMA on 5-min
  [ ] Rejection candle (hammer/shooting star) at EMA
  [ ] Within first 90 minutes of NY open
Entry: market order on rejection candle close
Stop: 1 ATR (14) beyond rejection candle
Target: 2R

Two setups is plenty. Three is the maximum a part-time trader can master.

4. Position sizing

A short formula, not a paragraph.

Risk per trade: 0.5% = $500
Stop distance: from setup
Position size = $500 / (stop distance × pip value)

Example: EUR/USD, 10-pip stop
Pip value at 1 lot = $10
Position size = $500 / (10 × $10) = 5 lots

If you're trading futures, use the contract specs and tick value. If you're trading crypto, account for the higher slippage by adding 20% buffer to stop distance.

5. Exit rules

Often missing entirely. Should be as specific as entry.

Hard stop: always set at order entry, no exceptions
Take profit: limit at planned target
Partial close: NONE, full position to TP or full stop
Move to break-even: only after price reaches 1R, never sooner
Trailing stop: only on setup B, trail 5-min swing lows after 1.5R
News exit: close 5 minutes before tier-1 USD news if trade is in profit

The "no partials" rule is intentional. Partials feel safer but mathematically reduce expectancy on most R-multiple setups.

6. Routine

Daily and weekly checkpoints.

Pre-market (15 min before London open):
  - Review economic calendar
  - Mark Asian range on EUR/USD, GBP/USD
  - Mark major levels on NAS100
  - Check DXY direction

Post-session (10 min after NY close):
  - Log every trade in journal
  - Note any rule violations
  - Note emotional state during open trades
  - Rate the day's discipline 1-10

Weekly (Sunday, 30 min):
  - Review every trade tagged "rule violation"
  - Calculate week's R-expectancy
  - Identify worst-performing setup and decide: keep, modify, or drop

Routine is what converts a plan from a document to a habit.

7. Stop-trading triggers

When you must walk away. This section saves accounts.

Stop trading immediately if:
  - 2 consecutive losses today
  - Down $1,000 today (2× daily risk)
  - Made a setup-violation trade (any unplanned entry)
  - Felt the urge to "make it back"
  - Slept less than 6 hours
  - Trading 3rd hour with no setup, close laptop

The trigger is the rule. Once it fires, the laptop closes. No exceptions, no "just one more."

8. Review cadence

How and when you change the plan itself.

Monthly review (last Sunday of month):
  - Calculate per-setup expectancy
  - Drop any setup with expectancy < 0.3R after 30 trades
  - Adjust risk per trade if win rate verified > 55% across 100 trades

Quarterly review:
  - Re-read full plan, rewrite from scratch if results have stagnated
  - Compare account growth to plan target
  - Decide on adding a new setup (max 1 per quarter)

A plan that never changes is a plan that doesn't reflect your real performance. Update it monthly.

The actual template (copy-paste)

Save this as a single page next to your charts:

=== MY TRADING PLAN ===

# ACCOUNT
Type: ________
Max daily loss: $______
Max overall loss: $______
Risk per trade: $______ (___ %)
Max trades/day: ___
Stop after: ___ consecutive losses

# MARKETS
Primary: ________________
Secondary: ________________
Sessions: ________________

# SETUP A: ____________
Entry conditions:
  [ ] ____________
  [ ] ____________
  [ ] ____________
Entry: ____________
Stop: ____________
Target: ____________
Time-stop: ____________

# SETUP B: ____________ (same structure)

# POSITION SIZING
Formula: $______ / (stop × pip value)

# EXITS
Hard stop: yes/no
Partials: yes/no
Break-even: at _____ R
Trailing: ____________
News exit: ____________

# ROUTINE
Pre-market: ____________
Post-session: ____________
Weekly review: ____________

# STOP-TRADING TRIGGERS
[ ] ____________
[ ] ____________
[ ] ____________
[ ] ____________

# REVIEW
Monthly check: ____________
Quarterly rewrite: yes/no

How to actually use the plan

A plan only works if you reference it in the moment. Three habits that make this happen:

1. Print it. A4 paper next to your monitor beats any digital doc.
2. Tag every trade in your journal with the setup name. Forces you to recognise off-plan trades.
3. Score discipline daily, not P&L. Even a winning trade off-plan is a 0/10 discipline day.

RB Trading Pro Journal has a trading plan template builder + per-trade setup tagging built in, so every trade in your log auto-links back to which rule it followed (or broke). Risk-free for 30 days.

TL;DR

A trading plan isn't a business plan. It's an operations checklist:

• 8 sections, each scannable in seconds
• Two setups maximum, both written as checklists
• Hard stop-trading triggers that are NOT negotiable
• Monthly review with measurable updates

The traders who survive year 2 don't have better strategies. They have a plan they actually use before they click buy.