The “Not Do” List: How To Plug the Holes In Your Trading

If you make boneheaded mistakes again and again, it’s time to make some serious changes to your trading strategy.

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Would you cast off with holes in your boat? Would you even raise the sails? I wouldn’t either, but that’s exactly what most traders do when the market opens. Before you start learning new patterns or indicators, do one thing.

Here’s the Daily Accelerator agenda for today:

• The Big Picture: To do, or not to do? It’s the most important question you can ask yourself before your next trade.
• Watchlist: One of the strongest IPOs in years just hit a new high. Talk about timing.
• On My Radar: Code leaks, juiced algos, and one of the most important books every trader should dog-ear.

The Big Picture

This might skew toward the negative. Bear with me, because it will save you time and help you achieve your goals faster.

One thing that so many people struggle with is just trying to build up. They want to learn new patterns and indicators. They want to learn to short sell when they still haven’t mastered going long. Or they want to play big when they still aren’t profitable trading small. Instead of trying to plug the holes in the boat, they raise the sails and cast off.

It’s similar to alcoholism. Some people who struggle with alcohol say they want to quit the next morning. But they’re never truly committed to that.

Another example is training. You make a mistake and in the moment, you say you’ll fix it. But then you don’t write it down. You don’t commit to changing. Then the next day comes around and that same mistake happens again.

This is why I recommend having a “not do” list.

A lot of this is about setting goals. Goals are good, and you should set them. But start with a framework of things that you won’t do.

There are probably a lot of holes in the boat, so maybe start with the top 10 things that you’re committed to not doing anymore.

Then journal it. Every day when you write in your trading journal, ask yourself “did I stick to my not do list?” If you didn’t, try to figure out why. Then recommit to the not do list again for the next day.

Again, this has a lot to do with goals. One thing that will help with trading is to avoid monetary goals. Focus on process goals. Imagine the consequences of not sustaining the change you want to make.

My Take

Creating a not do list is one of the biggest things that really helped me get over the hump. I committed to things that I would not do anymore. That became the basis of my success framework. And as soon as I was able to not only say it, but commit to it, everything changed.

Watchlist

On March 18, Swarmer Inc (NASDAQ: $SWMR) had one of the strongest IPOs we’ve seen in a while. It closed near highs on Friday, hit another new high after-hours, and held.

SWMR is one to watch this week. The company develops software to coordinate military drones, so it’s getting a lot of press. Remember, trade the pattern, not the stock.

On My Radar

• Are Meta and Google juicing the algo to keep you addicted?
• I highly recommend “The Daily Trading Coach” by Brett Steenbarger. My copy is marked up and dog-eared. Even my Kindle copy is filled with notes.
• Anthropic accidentally took down thousands of code repositories on GitHub last week. It all started when the company included source code in a recent release. Oops.

Now go add “make a not do list” to your to do list. Then do it.