Home › Templates › Trading checklist
Trading Checklist Template
A free pre-trade checklist spreadsheet: score each trade idea against your own weighted rules, let must-pass items veto the trade, get position size and reward:risk from entry, stop and target, then log every check and its result in R to compare high-score and low-score trades.
Use it in Google Sheets: choose File → Import → Upload in Sheets and pick the .xlsx, or upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. No sign-up, no add-on, no email needed.
| # | Check before you enter | Must-pass | Weight | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Firm checked: I know who holds my money and checked its registration | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 2 | The money at risk is money I can afford to lose | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 3 | I understand this product and how it can lose money | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 4 | Stop price is set before entry, and I accept the fill can be worse than the stop | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 5 | Position size comes from the risk formula auto | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 6 | If using margin or leverage: I know I can lose more than I deposit and the firm can sell without asking | Yes | 2 | N/A |
| 7 | I know which day-trading margin rules my firm applies now (old PDT rules or new intraday margin) | No | 1 | N/A |
| 8 | Reward:risk meets my minimum auto | No | 2 | Yes |
| 9 | The setup matches a written rule in my trading plan | No | 3 | Yes |
| 10 | Scheduled news, earnings or data releases checked for the holding period | No | 1 | No |
| 11 | Spread and volume are acceptable for my position size | No | 1 | Yes |
| 12 | I have not hit my daily or weekly loss limit | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 13 | I am not trading to win back a loss, out of boredom or on a tip | No | 2 | Yes |
| 14 | Exit plan written: target, stop and time limit | No | 1 | No |
| Points earned / possible | 20 / 22 |
| Calculated | Result |
|---|---|
| Account equity | $20,000.00 |
| Risk per trade | 1.0% |
| Entry / stop / target | 48.50 / 46.75 / 53.30 |
| Risk per share | $1.75 |
| Risk budget | $200.00 |
| Position size | 114 shares |
| Position value | $5,529.00 |
| Actual risk if stopped | $199.50 |
| Reward:risk | 2.74 |
| Checklist score | 90.9% |
| Verdict | PASSES your checklist |
What's inside the spreadsheet
| Tab | What you type | What it calculates |
|---|---|---|
| Start here | Nothing | Steps, key formulas, colour key, sources, disclaimer |
| Checklist | Equity, risk % per trade, entry, stop, target, minimum reward:risk, minimum score. 22 rule rows (14 filled, 8 spare): rule text, must-pass (Yes/No dropdown), weight 0–10, answer (Yes/No/N/A dropdown) | Risk per share, risk budget, position size, position value, actual risk, reward:risk, position value as % of equity, score %, must-pass failures, verdict |
| Log | One row per completed checklist: date, market, setup, entry, stop, target, size, score, must-pass OK?, trade taken?, exit price, fees, notes. 500 rows. | Checklist verdict, initial risk, P/L after fees, result in R |
| Summary | Score band limits (optional) | Counts, total and average R, average R by score band (AVERAGEIFS) and by verdict, share of trades with R > 0, bar chart |
| Example Checklist / Log / Summary | Already filled | The same tabs with one fictional checklist and 17 fictional log rows |
How to use it
- Rewrite the rule list on Checklist (B19:E40) to match your own trading plan. Keep a rule only if you can answer it Yes or No before you enter.
- Mark the rules that must never fail as must-pass. Give the others a weight from 0 to 10 for how much they matter to you.
- Before each trade, type equity, risk %, entry, stop and target. Position size and reward:risk fill in, and two rules answer themselves.
- Answer every rule Yes, No or N/A. Use N/A only when a rule does not apply, for example the margin rule in a cash account.
- Read the verdict in E15: DO NOT TRADE (a must-pass rule failed), BELOW your minimum score, INCOMPLETE, or PASSES your checklist.
- Copy the details, score and must-pass status into a new row on Log, and mark whether you took the trade. Log skipped trades too.
- When the trade closes, add the exit price and fees. After enough trades, read Summary.
The default checklist items and where they come from
The first six rules come from regulator investor pages, quoted below. The rest are common personal rules you should adapt. None of these sources says a checklist improves trading results; they describe risks to check before you trade.
| Rule | Must-pass | Source and exact wording |
|---|---|---|
| Firm checked: registration known | Yes | CFTC, Fraud Advisory: Foreign Currency (Forex) Fraud: "Contact the CFTC to check the company’s registration status, business background, and disciplinary history". For brokers, FINRA BrokerCheck and NFA BASIC serve the same purpose. |
| Money at risk is money you can afford to lose | Yes | FINRA, Understanding the New Intraday Margin Requirements (April 20, 2026): "You should always have adequate capital before trading with margin, and only use money that you can afford to lose." CFTC: "Do not deposit more funds than you can afford to lose." |
| You understand the product | Yes | Investor.gov, Thinking of Day Trading? Know the Risks: "Most importantly, if you don’t understand the investment, don’t buy into it." (The page notes it is no longer being updated.) |
| Stop set before entry; fill can be worse | Yes | Investor.gov, Stop Order: when the stop price is reached the order "becomes a market order", and "the price at which your trade is executed may differ from the stop price, especially in a fast-moving market where stock prices can change rapidly." |
| Margin or leverage risks understood | Yes (N/A in a cash account) | Investor.gov, Investor Bulletin: Understanding Margin Accounts (June 10, 2021): "You can lose more money than you have invested" and "Your brokerage firm may sell some or all of your securities without consulting you to pay off your margin loan". CFTC: "Margin trading can make you responsible for losses that greatly exceed the dollar amount you deposited." |
| You know which day-trading margin rules your firm applies | No (weight 1) | See the next section. |
| Not trading on emotion | No (weight 2) | Investor.gov, Thinking of Day Trading?: "It can be especially difficult to check your emotions at the door when making investment decisions in this kind of environment, which may lead to some costly financial mistakes." |
| Setup in plan, news checked, liquidity, loss limit, exit plan | Loss limit: Yes. Others: No | Your own trading plan. The trading plan template helps you write these rules down. |
Day-trading margin rules changed in 2026
FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10 (published April 20, 2026) adopts "new intraday margin standards to replace in their entirety the outdated day trading margin requirements, including the day trade count requirements for designating a customer as a “pattern day trader” and the $25,000 pattern day trader minimum equity requirement." The effective date is June 4, 2026. Firms that need more time may phase in "over a period of 18 months, until October 20, 2027."
FINRA's investor page says that under the new approach "There’s no $25,000 minimum equity requirement for day trading", that "$2,000 is the minimum equity required to engage in leveraged trading", and that maintenance margin of "25 percent of the current market value of the long margin-eligible equity securities" must be held "throughout the entire trading day". Investor.gov's Margin Rules for Day Trading bulletin adds: "Your brokerage firm might continue operating under the old day trading margin requirements during the transition, or they might choose to migrate to the new intraday margin standards sooner." That is why rule 7 asks you to know which set your firm uses.
The formulas, explained
Exact formulas from the file. Checklist inputs: B8 equity, B9 risk %, B10 entry, B11 stop, B12 target, B13 minimum reward:risk, B14 minimum score. Rules are in rows 19–40: D must-pass, E weight, F answer.
| Field | Formula |
|---|---|
| Risk per share (E5) | =IF(AND(ISNUMBER(B10),ISNUMBER(B11)),ABS(B10-B11),0) |
| Risk budget (E6) | =IF(AND(ISNUMBER(B8),ISNUMBER(B9)),B8*B9,0) |
| Position size (E7) | =IF(E5>0,ROUNDDOWN(E6/E5,0),0): floor(equity × risk % ÷ |entry − stop|) |
| Reward:risk (E10) | =IF(AND(E5>0,ISNUMBER(B12)),IF((B12-B10)*(B10-B11)>0,ABS(B12-B10)/E5,"Target on wrong side"),"") |
| Points earned / possible (G, H) | =IF(F19="Yes",N(E19),0) and =IF(OR(F19="Yes",F19="No"),N(E19),0) |
| Score (E12) | =IF(SUM(H19:H40)=0,"",SUM(G19:G40)/SUM(H19:H40)) |
| Must-pass failed (E13) | =SUMPRODUCT(($D$19:$D$40="Yes")*($F$19:$F$40="No")) |
| Verdict (E15) | =IF(E13>0,"DO NOT TRADE: …",IF(E14>0,"INCOMPLETE: …",IF(E12="","INCOMPLETE",IF(E12>=B14,"PASSES your checklist","BELOW your minimum score: skip")))) |
| Log: initial risk (N5) | =IF(AND(ISNUMBER(D5),ISNUMBER(E5),ISNUMBER(G5)),G5*ABS(D5-E5),"") |
| Log: P/L after fees (O5) | =IF(AND(K5="Yes",ISNUMBER(L5),ISNUMBER(N5)),(L5-D5)*SIGN(D5-E5)*G5-N(M5),"") |
| Log: result in R (P5) | =IF(ISNUMBER(O5),IF(N5>0,O5/N5,""),"") |
| Summary: average R in a score band (E15) | =IF(D15=0,"",AVERAGEIFS(Log!$P$5:$P$504,Log!$H$5:$H$504,">="&B15,Log!$H$5:$H$504,"<"&C15)) |
SIGN(entry − stop) is +1 for a long trade (stop below entry) and −1 for a short trade (stop above entry), so one formula handles both directions. The two automatic rules are =IF(E5=0,"",IF(E7>=1,"Yes","No")) for position size and =IF(ISNUMBER(E10),IF(E10>=B13,"Yes","No"),IF(E10="","","No")) for reward:risk.
Worked example from the sample data
Position size and reward:risk
Equity $20,000.00, risk 1% per trade, so the risk budget is $200.00. Entry 48.50, stop 46.75: risk per share is $1.75. $200.00 ÷ $1.75 = 114.29, rounded down to 114 shares. The position costs $5,529.00 (27.6% of equity, so no margin is needed), and the loss at the stop is $199.50 before slippage and fees. Target 53.30 is $4.80 away, so reward:risk is 4.80 ÷ 1.75 = 2.74, above the minimum of 2.0.
Score and verdict
Two rules are N/A (cash account, no margin), so they drop out. Two weighted rules are No (news not checked, no written exit plan). Points earned 20 of 22 possible = 90.9%. No must-pass rule failed and the minimum score is 80%, so the verdict is "PASSES your checklist". Had the stop been missing, the verdict would be DO NOT TRADE regardless of the score.
A short trade in the log
29 Sep 2026, ECHO short: entry 29.60, stop 30.40 (above entry), 250 shares, so initial risk is 250 × 0.80 = $200.00. Exit 27.70: P/L = (27.70 − 29.60) × (−1) × 250 − $2.00 fees = $473.00, or 473.00 ÷ 200.00 = +2.37R.
Summary of the fictional log
17 checks logged, 14 trades taken, 3 skipped, 1 taken despite a DO NOT TRADE verdict (BRVO, -1.15R). 13 trades are closed and one is still open. Total +3.30R, average +0.25R per closed trade, P/L after fees $661.25.
| Score band | Score | Closed trades | Average R | Total R | Share R > 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low | 0%–<60% | 2 | +0.60R | +1.20R | 50% |
| Medium | 60%–<80% | 4 | +0.61R | +2.43R | 75% |
| High | 80%–100% | 7 | -0.05R | -0.33R | 43% |
| Checklist verdict | Closed trades | Average R | Total R |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass | 7 | -0.05R | -0.33R |
| Below min | 5 | +0.96R | +4.78R |
| Do not trade | 1 | -1.15R | -1.15R |
In this made-up log the High band has the lowest average R. With 13 closed trades that means nothing either way: one or two trades move a band average by a full R. The table exists so you can check your own trades over a longer record, not to prove that scoring works.
Printable one-page checklist
For a paper copy next to your screen. The button opens just this checklist in a print window. Must-pass rules are marked; any No there means no trade.
Pre-trade checklist
Shares = equity × risk % ÷ |entry − stop|, rounded down = ______ · Reward:risk = |target − entry| ÷ |entry − stop| = ______
| # | Check before you enter | Must-pass | Wt | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Firm checked: I know who holds my money and checked its registration | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 2 | The money at risk is money I can afford to lose | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 3 | I understand this product and how it can lose money | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 4 | Stop price is set before entry, and I accept the fill can be worse than the stop | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 5 | Position size comes from the risk formula | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 6 | If using margin or leverage: I know I can lose more than I deposit and the firm can sell without asking | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 7 | I know which day-trading margin rules my firm applies now (old PDT rules or new intraday margin) | 1 | Y N N/A | |
| 8 | Reward:risk meets my minimum | 2 | Y N N/A | |
| 9 | The setup matches a written rule in my trading plan | 3 | Y N N/A | |
| 10 | Scheduled news, earnings or data releases checked for the holding period | 1 | Y N N/A | |
| 11 | Spread and volume are acceptable for my position size | 1 | Y N N/A | |
| 12 | I have not hit my daily or weekly loss limit | Yes | 2 | Y N N/A |
| 13 | I am not trading to win back a loss, out of boredom or on a tip | 2 | Y N N/A | |
| 14 | Exit plan written: target, stop and time limit | 1 | Y N N/A |
Score = sum of weights answered Yes ÷ sum of weights answered Yes or No = ______ % · Any must-pass No → DO NOT TRADE.
Educational checklist from becoin.net/templates/trading-checklist. Not financial advice. Trading can lose money; leveraged trading can lose more than you deposit.
Common mistakes
- Filling the checklist after the trade. It only records a decision if you answer before you enter.
- Too many rules. Twenty soft rules make every score look the same. Keep the ones you would really skip a trade for.
- Weights that turn must-pass rules into suggestions. If breaking a rule should stop the trade, mark it must-pass instead of giving it weight 10.
- Logging only the trades you took. Skipped checks show how often the checklist stopped you; log them with Trade taken? = No.
- Moving the stop after entry. Initial risk and R use the stop you planned. A wider stop means the real risk was bigger than logged.
- Reading too much into the Summary. Results vary trade to trade. Wait for a long record before changing rules because of a band average.
- Using rounded-up size. Rounding up puts you over your risk budget. The formula always rounds down.
FAQ
What should be on a pre-trade checklist?
Rules you can answer Yes or No before you enter: who holds your money, whether you can afford the loss, whether you understand the product, where the stop is, the position size from your risk limit, reward:risk against your minimum, whether the setup matches your written plan, scheduled news, liquidity, your daily loss limit and your state of mind. Mark the few that must never fail as must-pass.
How do I calculate position size before a trade?
Position size = account equity × risk per trade ÷ the distance from entry to stop, rounded down. With $20,000 equity, 1% risk, entry $48.50 and stop $46.75: $200 ÷ $1.75 = 114.29, so 114 shares. If the stop is hit you lose about $199.50 before slippage and fees.
Does a trading checklist improve results?
There is no guarantee, and this page does not claim one. A checklist makes your rules explicit and your decisions recordable. The Log and Summary tabs let you compare your own average result in R for high-score and low-score trades; with only a few dozen trades, any difference can be chance.
Is the $25,000 pattern day trader rule still in effect?
FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10 replaces the day trading margin requirements, including the $25,000 pattern day trader minimum, with intraday margin standards effective June 4, 2026. Firms may phase in until October 20, 2027, so your firm may still apply the old rules. Ask your firm which rules apply to your account.
What is a must-pass item?
A rule that blocks the trade on its own. In this template, any must-pass item answered No sets the verdict to DO NOT TRADE, even if the weighted score is high. Use it for rules such as a set stop, affordable risk and a daily loss limit not yet reached.
Can I use this trading checklist in Google Sheets?
Yes. In Google Sheets choose File, Import, Upload and pick the .xlsx, or upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. The formulas use only IF, SUMPRODUCT, ROUNDDOWN, COUNTIFS, SUMIFS and AVERAGEIFS.
Related tools and templates
- Position size calculatorShares from risk and stop
- Risk/reward calculatorTarget vs stop distance
- Trading planWrite the rules this checklist checks
- Trading journalReview each trade in detail
- Online trading journalLog trades in the browser
- Leverage P&L calculatorSee how leverage scales losses
- Why win rate alone doesn't matterResults in R and expectancy
- All templatesFree spreadsheets
Educational template only, not financial, investment or tax advice. A checklist does not make a trade safe or profitable, and this page does not claim that using one improves results. Trading can lose money; margin and leveraged trading can lose more than you deposit. Example data is fictional: tickers ALFA, BRVO, CHRL, DLTA, ECHO and FXTR, prices, answers, scores and results are made up. Quotes from FINRA, Investor.gov (SEC) and the CFTC were retrieved on 25 October 2026; check your own firm's margin rules.