Prep, I've heard its essential, but what is it exactly?

Traders swear by "prep" (pre-market preparation), but have you ever wondered what precisely it is?

How about, when do you do it?

How long does it take?

What does it include?

And most importantly, what's the benefit?

Well, I'm linking a copy of mine here so you can see a real example.

To answer the questions, I'll start with the most critical aspect of prep. All of my best, largest payout trades come about as a result of my prep.

The role of prep is to develop a foundation from which all of the trades I will take over the day are based. The only exceptions are some scalping opportunities based on tiny windows of opportunity that rely on fast reactions to minor imbalances impacting price over a short time.

Prep also covers trade grading (A+ are assigned the most generous size and scale-ins, etc.).

All of my best, largest payout trades come about as a result of my prep.

Every trading day starts with prep. It takes me (and all professional traders I know) up to an hour, but never less than 30 minutes.

I use numerous studies to arrive at scenarios I envisage forcing traders having to cover, which leads to the aggressive price movement you'll see in any number of the real-trading footage I've previously posted (examples here).

And of course, I like to know the big picture view. Live trading masterclass members know we identified a significant upwards move in $AUD during 2020, which is how we exploited many large swings to the upside.

At the time of writing, we have seen a shift to $AUD anchored to the downside by a particular dominant seller, which we have capitalised on. Our pre-market prep aligns us with the most dominant broad market themes and the intraday themes which determine when and at what price we strike.