The 5 Questions Pre-Click
Execution Precision
8 min read
Answer five critical questions before every trade to ensure alignment between setup, risk, and execution plan.
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8 min read
Answer five critical questions before every trade to ensure alignment between setup, risk, and execution plan.
Before every single entry, ask five questions. If you cannot answer all five clearly and immediately, you are not ready to trade -- you are ready to gamble.
The greenlight checklist tells you whether the environment and setup warrant a trade. These five questions go one step further. They force you to articulate the specific parameters of this trade, right now, before you commit capital.
Every unanswered question is an open variable. Open variables become improvised decisions under pressure, and improvised decisions under pressure are where execution breaks down. Five questions, answered before the click, close every variable that matters.
Before entering any trade, you must be able to state what gives this particular setup a positive expected value. Not "I think it's going up." Not "the chart looks bullish." A specific, identifiable market condition that your data shows produces a statistical edge.
Your edge might be a liquidity sweep at a daily level with order flow confirmation. It might be a delta divergence at a key support zone during a trending session. Whatever it is, you need to name it.
If you cannot name the edge, you are not trading a system. You are trading a feeling.
Edge identified: price swept the $96,100 daily low and reclaimed it with aggressive buying on the tape. This liquidity sweep pattern has a 61% win rate in my journal across 83 instances with an average R of 0.47.
The edge was specific, historically validated, and articulated before entry. The trader knew exactly why this trade had positive expectancy.
Your stop-loss is not optional and it is not approximate. Before clicking the entry button, you must know the exact price at which this trade is invalidated.
The stop must be placed at a level that makes structural sense -- below a swing low for longs, above a swing high for shorts. It should represent the point where your trade thesis is objectively wrong, not an arbitrary dollar amount or percentage distance.
Stop placed above the 4H supply zone at $99,100 -- the level where the bearish thesis would be structurally invalidated. Price ran the stop by 15 ticks before reversing. The stop was correct; the outcome was a normal cost of business.
A properly placed stop that gets hit is not a failure. A stop you moved, forgot to place, or set at an arbitrary level is a systemic problem.
A mental stop is not a stop. It is a suggestion you will negotiate with yourself when price reaches it. Place the order in the exchange before or immediately after entry. No exceptions.
You need a defined exit target before entry. The target should be based on the next significant structural level, not a round number or a gut feeling about "how far it can go."
Without a target, you have no way to calculate risk-reward. Without risk-reward, you cannot determine if the trade meets your minimum threshold. And without a minimum threshold, you are accepting every trade regardless of its expected value.
Target placed at $97,550 -- the underside of the prior 4H consolidation range where sell-side liquidity was likely stacked. This structural target gave a 3:1 R:R and represented a level where natural profit-taking would occur.
The target was derived from structure, not hope. Price reached the level and was met by selling. The exit was planned before the entry.
If you use a scaling exit strategy, define each partial exit level in advance:
| Portion | Exit Level | Logic |
|---|---|---|
| 50% | $97,000 (1.8R) | Prior session high -- first resistance |
| 30% | $97,550 (3R) | 4H consolidation base -- primary target |
| 20% | Trail stop | Let remainder run with breakeven stop |
The specific percentages and levels are yours to define. The requirement is that they are defined before you enter.
Position sizing is the mechanism that converts your stop distance into a dollar risk. Before entry, calculate the exact position size that limits your loss to your predefined per-trade risk.
Position Size = Account Risk / (Entry Price - Stop Price)
Example: Account: $50,000 Risk per trade: 1% = $500 Entry: $96,200 Stop: $95,750 Distance: $450
Position Size = $500 / $450 = 1.11 BTC
This is not negotiable. Do not round up because the setup "looks really good." Do not increase size because your last three trades won. The sizing formula exists to ensure that no single trade can materially damage your account, regardless of outcome.
On a BTC/USDT perpetual contract, taker fees on Binance are 0.04% per side. For a $96,200 entry on 1.11 BTC, round-trip fees are approximately $85. Add estimated slippage of $20-50. Your effective risk is closer to $600-635, not $500. Factor this into your sizing or accept the overshoot.
This question is different from "where is my stop." Your stop is a price level. Invalidation is a market condition. Sometimes a trade is invalidated before price reaches your stop.
Invalidation conditions include:
Entered on support reclaim. Within 10 minutes, ETH broke below its daily support and BTC funding rate spiked sharply positive. Market context shifted. Exited at $96,220 for breakeven rather than waiting for either stop or target.
The stop at $95,750 was never hit. But the invalidation conditions were met: correlated weakness and a funding rate shift signaled a changed environment. Exiting early was the correct decision.
Define your invalidation conditions before entry, alongside your stop. They are your secondary defense -- a logical override that can get you out of a trade that is technically alive but practically dead.
Combine all five answers into a single pre-trade statement. This takes 15-30 seconds and should become automatic.
"My edge is [specific edge]. My stop is at [price] because [structural reason]. My target is [price] because [structural reason]. I am risking [amount] which is [X%] of my account. This trade is invalid if [specific conditions]."
Write it in your journal. Say it out loud. Put it in a text field on your trading screen. The format does not matter. What matters is that you answer all five questions explicitly, every single time, without exception.
If you sit down to answer these five questions and find yourself struggling with even one of them, that is the checklist working. It just saved you from a trade you were not prepared for.
The most common gaps:
Each gap is a specific, fixable problem. Fix it before you trade, not during.