A Trading Plan That Matches the Rulebook

A plan that could sit on any retail blog is not a plan for a funded account. Write the firm's constraints first. Then write the trades you will not take.

Session

Define when you are allowed to be in the market, then intersect that with the firm's overnight and weekend fields. Those two are yes/no on the Directory profile and in Compare. If overnight is no, you flatten at the cash close or at the time the rulebook names. "Whenever I am at the desk" is not a session. Glossary: read overnight and weekend on the profile; there is no substitute field called "session."

Daily loss

The daily loss limit is a hard stop, not a suggestion. When the program block has daily loss limit percent, write that number at the top of the plan. Hit it, you are done for the day — not "one more to get it back." Glossary: /glossary/daily-loss-limit. The max drawdown is a different number; trailing vs static changes when the floor moves. See /article/understanding-drawdowns.

News blackout

News trading is a yes/no on the profile, a Compare row, and a Directory collection at /directory/news-trading (firms we have marked as permitted). A yes is not a blank check. Many rulebooks still name a window around listed events. Write the firm's window in the plan, or write "I do not trade the window, even if the field is yes." /article/news-trading-rules and /glossary/news-trading. We do not keep a public list on this page of which firms ban news. That belongs on the profile and in the rulebook, because it changes.

Consistency cap

If the firm uses a consistency rule, no single day may carry the payout. Write the percentage from the rulebook. We do not currently put that percentage in the Compare table. /glossary/consistency-rule and /research/consistency-rules. On an outlier day, the plan is to stop at the cap, not to "let it run" and request payout.

The trades you will not take

Name them. Examples that are actually firm constraints: a setup that requires holding through a restricted news window; a size that spends most of the remaining cushion on one idea; a product the program does not permit. /article/position-sizing-math for the ticket. /article/evaluation-strategy for the week-by-week use of the same numbers.

Review

Once a week, tag "in plan" vs "out of plan." Out of plan winners still count as a leak. The journal cards on /education (Edgewonk, TradeZella, Jigsaw) are tools for that review. This page will not teach journaling in a few hundred words.

Next

Put the plan next to /compare for two firms you would actually pay. If you cannot fill session, daily loss, news, and consistency from the profile plus the rulebook, you do not have a plan yet. /match if you still need names. /glossary for the terms.

FAQ

Q: What if the Directory profile is missing daily loss or drawdown? A: Treat it as unknown. Do not copy a percentage from another firm. Read the rulebook, or pick a program whose profile is filled enough to plan against.

Q: Should the plan include which firm I will choose? A: No. Choosing is /directory, /compare, and /match. The plan is how you will trade whoever you already picked.