A day trading setup checklist is the routine you run before the opening bell, in the same order every morning: settle your head, ready your workspace and charts, scan, cut to a short watchlist, check every name against your criteria, set your risk and write your plan, check the news, rehearse, then do a final check before 9:30. Here's the routine I follow, plus an A+ scorecard you can use to grade each name and a printable PDF.
TL;DR
- Preparation decides how you trade the open. A rushed morning with no plan leads to emotional trades.
- Keep the watchlist short and grade every name with the A+ scorecard in step 6: three hard gates, then four scores out of 8.
- Mark five levels at most, plus the nearest whole or half dollar, and decide in advance what you'll do if price holds, rejects, reclaims or fails each one.
- Write a trade plan and a no-trade plan, with three cancel rules: liquidity, price action and your own state.
- The scorecard ranks your list. The open still has to confirm it.
I built this Day Trading Setup Checklist from the process I follow and teach inside the Momentum chatroom, so you start every day focused and less exposed to FOMO.
Here is what you get:
- A complete pre-market checklist, step by step
- Setup tips for your charts, scanners and workspace
- An A+ scorecard to grade every name before the bell
- A downloadable printable PDF checklist you can keep on your desk
Let's get your trading setup dialed in.
Why Does Preparation Matter More Than Strategy?
The best setup in the world won't save you if you're not prepared.
Preparation is what keeps you calm when the market's flying and everyone else is chasing. When your charts, scanners and head are ready, you're better placed to make calm decisions. You're more likely to spot traps before they form and to follow your plan.
Skip it, and FOMO, overtrading and hesitation take over. You scan blindly, jump into random tickers, trade without knowing your risk, or try to catch up with everyone else. That's guessing.
My own version is narrow on purpose. Every night I post a free watchlist. Out of maybe five names on it, usually only one actually meets my criteria at the open. That's the one I trade. The checklist below is built to get you from a long scan to a short list you can actually trade.
The Pre-Market Day Trading Checklist, Step by Step
Consistency doesn't start at 9:30 a.m. It starts the moment you sit down at your desk. Run these steps every morning before the market opens.
1. Clear Your Mind Before You Clear Your Charts
Trading starts with your head. If you're distracted, frustrated or rushed, it shows up in your trades.
If your head isn't right, nothing else matters.
2. Power Up Your Workspace
A messy setup leads to messy trades. Make sure everything is ready before scanning begins.
When things go wrong in milliseconds, a clean, ready workspace is your advantage.
3. Set Up Your Charts Properly
Charts are your language, so read them clearly. I keep the chart simple: price, VWAP, and a couple of moving averages.
Don't clutter your charts. Every extra indicator is one more thing to argue with when the open moves fast.
4. Run Your Scanners
This is where the day takes shape. Before the bell, find where the volume and catalysts are.
Remember: you want better tickers, and fewer of them. A low float isn't a reason to cut a name on its own. I trade them, with respect: thin floats pay fast, but they trade tough; fills are hard and the moves are violent. Respect the thinness with smaller size and faster exits. For the full filter set, and how to check a stock's strength against SPY, see my day trading scanner setup.
5. Build Your Watchlist and Map Your Levels
Now narrow your focus. Most traders get into trouble because they try to trade everything.
If you can't explain why a ticker's on your list, remove it. To rank the survivors into tiers, see how to build a high-probability watchlist.
Map five levels at most for each name:
- Pre-market high
- Pre-market low
- VWAP
- Prior-day high
- One major daily support or resistance zone
Then add the nearest whole or half dollar. Round numbers show up in my own trades: in my 2026 strategy recap, on SHPH, I took the break over VWAP at $4.48 for the break of the $4.50 half-dollar.
These are decision points for the open. At the open, price does one of four things at each level. Write the word and your response next to every level before the bell:
An example to adapt: Hold of the pre-market high after the pullback: long, stop a few cents under it. Rejects the high: no trade. Fails below VWAP and can't get back: no trade off VWAP; wait for a reclaim or the next name.
6. Identify Your A+ Setups Before the Bell Rings: The Scorecard
An A+ setup is a grade for the setup, decided before the trade. Clean setups still fail. There is no 100% win rate, and chasing one is a fantasy, so a grade tells you which trade deserves your attention. It can't tell you which one will win.
What A+ is not. The size of the gap isn't the grade. I put my focus on the single most obvious runner, the one with the heavy volume and the clean chart, and I leave the rest alone. Three things look like A+ and aren't:
- A big move with no structure. Wide spreads, no clear levels, and every entry gets slipped.
- Social media hype. If you first hear about a ticker at the open, you're late. The SEC's investor education office tells investors to "use extreme caution when making investment decisions based solely on information found on social media platforms."
- Random volatility. Wild candles that don't respect any level look like opportunity and trade like chaos.
The one-sentence test: if you can't name your entry, your stop and what kills the trade in one sentence, it isn't A+.
Three hard gates. Each one is yes or no. If any gate is a no, the name is off the list, whatever it scores below.
Four scores, 0 to 2 points each, 8 points maximum. The bands below are examples to adapt to your own market.
A relative volume of 2.0 means the stock is trading twice its usual volume for that time of day (what relative volume tells you). VWAP tells me who's in control: buyers are above it, sellers are below it.
How to read it. All three gates must be yes. Then add the four scores. As an example to adapt, you might call 6 to 8 an A+, 4 or 5 a B to watch, and anything under 4 a pass. There's no single right number, so pick your threshold, write it on the sheet, and don't move it mid-morning.
The grade ranks the list. The open still has to confirm it. Pre-market makes you guess, because there's no established structure yet. So the scorecard decides which name gets your attention, and the open decides whether you trade it. I don't buy the first candle of the open. The second candle needs to break the pre-market high on higher volume with a strong close. If you struggle to wait for that, read how to stop trading FOMO in the first 15 minutes.
What a clean name looked like. From The Momentum Method: TRNR was the cleanest chart on my list, a cup-and-curl out of the pre-market highs on heavy volume. I took the first pullback off the 90 EMA at 59 cents, risking two cents to 57. Clean levels, heavy volume, and a risk you could state in one sentence.
7. Define Your Risk and Write Two Plans
Before the first candle forms, your risk must be set in stone.
My stops are tight, usually a few cents, pinned under a confirmed level like the 90 EMA or VWAP. My position size stays basically constant, because oversizing on a trade you feel strongly about is exactly how the outlier blowups happen. Thin floats are the exception: I trade those with smaller size and faster exits.
The trade plan. One line per name: the entry trigger, the stop, the size, and what voids it. An example to adapt: Long on the pullback that holds the pre-market high, stop a few cents under the level, normal size, void if it rejects the high with a topping tail.
The no-trade plan. Write down what keeps you out before you need it: no trade if volume doesn't confirm, no trade if the stock is already extended far above VWAP, and no trade if your head isn't calm.
Three cancel rules. One for each way a good setup goes bad. When one triggers, the setup is cancelled, no matter how good it looked at 9:15.
- Liquidity. The spread is too wide for a fair fill, or volume dries up at your level.
- Price action. Price chops around your level, or the breakout fails.
- Your own state. Two losses in a row means a pause (an example rule to adapt). When you feel tilt or FOMO building, step away from the screen, and only trade when your head is completely flat and calm.
If you can't define your stop, you have no trade.
8. Review the News and Market Sentiment
Momentum doesn't happen in a vacuum. Always know the macro backdrop.
You're preparing to adapt to the market, whatever it does today.
9. Visualize Your Execution
Take thirty seconds to rehearse the plan you just wrote.
When things move fast, you've already been through it once.
10. Double-Check Everything 5 Minutes Before the Bell
The final checklist before the open:
You're ready. You've done the work. Now all that's left is execution.
Download the Printable Checklist (PDF)
To make things easier, there's a printable PDF checklist you can keep by your desk. It's an earlier version of this routine, so it differs in places: it still lists percentage risk caps and a low-float filter, and it doesn't include the level map or the A+ scorecard in step 6. Where the two differ, follow this page.
Download the Day Trading Setup Checklist (PDF)
Inside My Pre-Market Routine in the Live Room
Here's what my own pre-market routine looks like on a real morning in the room.
Step 1: The Night Before
The nightly watchlist drops at 6:00 PM, and members mark their levels on it. That's most of steps 4 and 5 done before bed, so the morning goes to narrowing the list and planning.
Step 2: Scanning and Narrowing
The pre-market watchlist drops between 9 and 9:30 AM ET. I sort by volume, gap and catalyst, then check what's left against my criteria.
Step 3: Building the Plan
I mark the pre-market highs, VWAP and my risk levels for the name I'm watching. After that, the job is to wait for confirmation.
Step 4: Execution
The live stream runs from 8 to 11 AM ET, and entries, targets and risk parameters are called out live as setups develop. I don't buy the first candle. I let price prove that buyers are defending a level first: a green candle flipping off support, a reclaim of the 90 EMA, volume stepping in. And I step away from the desk by 11am no matter what my profit or loss is for the day.
If you want to watch my process run live every morning, the chatroom starts with a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
Why Does a Checklist Create Consistency (and Confidence)?
Trading isn't about predicting the market. It's about preparing for it.
When you follow the same routine every morning, your emotions lose some of their grip. You panic less when the market moves and second-guess yourself less. You're more likely to trade your plan calmly.
That's why, after close to 10 years of trading small-cap momentum, I still follow the same rules every single day. Repeat what works until it becomes instinct.
The checklist covers the morning. After the session, log what you planned against what you did in a trading journal, so tomorrow's checklist gets better.
This checklist is your foundation. Print it. Use it. Live it.
And if you want to see a routine like this in action every morning, join us in the chatroom, where I trade my own process live, from scanning to execution, in real time.
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Your best trading days start before the bell rings.
Frequently Asked Questions About Day Trading Setup
What is a day trading setup checklist?
A day trading setup checklist is a short routine you run before each trading session: mental prep, workspace, charts, scanners, a watchlist, an A+ grade for each name, your risk and plan, the news, and a final check. It keeps you from starting the day rushed.
Why do I need a checklist before trading?
A checklist keeps you from skipping steps, chasing random tickers or trading emotionally. It won't guarantee results. What it gives you is a repeatable process you can review and fix.
What should be on my trading setup checklist?
Your checklist should include:
- A pre-market mindset reset
- Platform and workspace readiness
- Chart and indicator setup (VWAP, volume, key levels)
- A short watchlist, a level map and an A+ grade for each name
- Your risk, a trade plan and a no-trade plan
- A final readiness review before the bell
You can download the printable PDF to follow the core steps each morning.
How do you identify A+ setups before the bell rings?
Run every watchlist name through three hard gates: a catalyst, room on the daily chart, and a risk you can define in one sentence. Then score pre-market behavior, relative volume, level clarity and VWAP behavior from 0 to 2 each. Names that pass the gates and clear the threshold you wrote down are your A+ list. The open still has to confirm them before you trade.
How long should my morning preparation take?
Long enough to finish every step without rushing. In the room, the nightly watchlist drops at 6:00 PM so members can mark levels the night before, and the pre-market watchlist drops between 9 and 9:30 AM ET.
Do experienced traders still use checklists?
I do. After close to 10 years of trading small-cap momentum, I still follow the same rules every single day, because that's how I stay consistent.
Where can I watch a pre-market routine live?
Join the chatroom. The live stream runs from 8 to 11 AM ET, and you can watch me scan, plan and trade, with entries, targets and risk called out as setups develop.
This content is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Trading involves significant risk and may not be suitable for all traders.
