The Hour Before the Open: A Routine You Can Copy Today
Key takeaway
- Two thirds of the routine happens when the market is shut. "It's the things that you do when you are not trading."
- The step almost nobody copies is the useful one: name one bad habit before the session and watch only that one, for a week, before moving to the next.
- Review the green days too. A profitable session with three rule breaks is a worse day than a small loss taken by the book.
Learning pathChoose how you trade before you choose what to tradeStep 6 of 7
Read before this:Mean Reversion: When a Price Has Gone Too Far
Based on a clip by Day Trading Addict (@DayTradingAddict) — YouTube
The shape of it
Three blocks: before the open, during the session, after the close. Only the middle one involves the market.
One market
"Focusing on one market I'm locked in… you can just understand the behaviour." Familiarity with a single instrument is itself part of the edge.
This also makes your record readable. Thirty trades across one instrument is a sample. Thirty trades across six instruments is six samples of five, and none of them says anything — the same problem as strategy hopping, one layer down.
Levels first, then what kind of day it is
Mark the levels, then answer one question: is this a trending day, a range, or a reversal setting up? That answer decides your size, before any setup appears.
He walks daily, hourly and five-minute levels, then reads the context — and uses the read to decide whether today is a size-up day or a light day. That ordering matters. Condition first, then size, then setup. Most beginners run it backwards: setup, then size, then a story about the condition.
Decided during the session
- Size, based on how the last trade went
- Whether today counts
- Which levels matter now
Decided before it opens
- Size, based on the condition you read
- The levels, drawn once
- What would make you sit out
One bad habit at a time
This is the step worth stealing. Pick the habit that cost you most last month, watch only that, for a week or two, then move on.
He pairs it with talking to himself in real time — "chill out, relax, your trading setup is not there" — which sounds silly and works for a boring reason: naming the impulse out loud puts a half-second between the feeling and the click, and the click is the only part that costs money.
Have a bias. Refuse to marry it.
"I don't like to marry my bias." A bias is a hypothesis with a cancel condition attached. Without the cancel condition it is just a position you took before the market opened.
Review the winning days too
"Just because you have a winning day doesn't mean that you didn't make mistakes." Score the process, not the number.
The screenshot habit is what makes this possible. A chart image plus one line — what I did, what the rule said — takes ninety seconds, and it is the only record that survives your memory of how the day felt.
One more line from the video is worth keeping: detach from the money. Not as a mindset slogan — as a practical test. If you can hear yourself thinking "I need to make that back", the size is too big for you today. That is a sizing signal, not a character flaw.
Try this week
- Write your routine as six lines: three before the open, three after the close. Stick it above the screen.
- Pick one bad habit for this week. Only one. Write it at the top of the page each morning.
- Mark your levels before the session and do not redraw them once it starts.
- At the close, screenshot every trade and add one line: what the rule said, and what you did.
Common questions
What should a beginner do before the market opens?
Three things, in order: mark your levels on the chart, read what kind of day it looks like — trending, ranging or turning — and decide your size from that read rather than from how the last session went. Then name one bad habit you are watching for today. Everything else in a morning routine is preparation for those four decisions.
Should I trade one market or several as a beginner?
One. Trading a single instrument means your thirty logged trades form one sample you can actually judge, and it lets you learn how that market behaves at particular times of day. Spreading the same trades across six instruments gives you six samples of five, which tells you nothing about any of them.
How do I stop revenge trading and FOMO?
Pick one of them and watch only that one for a week or two. Write it at the top of your page before the session so you are looking for it in real time rather than finding it in the evening. Saying the correction out loud when you feel the impulse sounds odd but inserts a pause between the urge and the order, which is where the cost actually is.
Is it bad to have a market bias before the day starts?
No — a bias is a hypothesis, and having one is how you avoid reacting to every tick. The problem is a bias with no cancellation price. Decide in advance which level, if it trades, deletes the view, and write that number down. Then changing your mind is not a defeat, it is the plan doing its job.
Should I review my winning trading days as well as losing ones?
Yes, and they are often the more useful review. A green day can contain several rule breaks that happened to be rewarded, and those are exactly the behaviours you will repeat because the outcome praised them. Scoring each day by rules kept rather than money made is the fastest way to stop a profitable mistake from becoming a habit.