Before you click
Stock session checklist
Regular hours, then the overnight gap. Shares, not coins. PDT is a rule, not a suggestion. Education only. Not a broker. Not a signal.
Object
Share, ETF, or option?
A common stock is not an option spread. If you are selling premium, max loss is the envelope — use the defined-risk calculator. If you are long shares, size in whole shares.
Clock
RTH is not 24/7.
9:30–16:00 Eastern is the regular session. Extended hours are thinner. Overnight can gap through your stop. If you cannot hold the gap, do not hold the share.
Risk cap
Floor to a whole share.
Dollar risk = account × risk%. Shares = floor(dollar risk ÷ |entry − stop|). If that is zero, skip. PDT: pattern-day-trader rules can freeze a small account. Know your count before you flatten.
Invalidation
The stop is a price.
Earnings, halt, and gap can fill worse than the stop. That is the product. Write the invalidation anyway. Do not “see how it opens” without a size already computed.
No-trade
Sit on your hands.
No borrow on a short, PDT already burned, trading the first print of an earnings gap with no plan, or averaging a loser into the close. No-trade.
Lab
Open the calculator with the example already filled. Change the numbers. Then size your own ticket — or skip.
Share size — 1% of $25k Stock courses →Log fills already taken in the browser journal or the Windows journal. A screenshot is not a record.