There's a video by David Keller, which I linked in the featured links section, titled: "Re-Evaluating Your Process". It really resonated with me that 3 of his questions were about routines. I certainly recognize the importance of having good routines and sticking to them, which is why I created the routines section of SwingTradeBot. (Here's my original blog post about the routines functionality.)

It also stood out to me that his questions about "which opportunities did I miss" is also something I address in my daily & weekly routines. Missing trades has been and continues to be my biggest problem as a trader. I've come to terms with the fact that one can't catch every big mover but I still strive to get better at executing on as many as possible. This is really what drove me to create the routines functionality -- I didn't want to miss a trade which could have made me thousands of dollars had I simply remembered to run a particular scan!

Two of David's questions were about identifying & analyzing the best & worst performers. Those things also happen to be part of my weekly & daily routines.

I'm constantly looking at the top % gainers and losers lists to see what's moving (without me along for the ride) and to figure out if there was a signal I missed. My daily routine has links to the daily percentage movers scans. My weekly routine points me to the "over time" percentage gainers & losers scan. On the weekend I'll typically check the 5-day movers and the 30 day movers.

So here's a fun little exercise -- Check out the list of top 1-year percentage gainers (a screenshot of some is above) and ask yourself how many you were in this year. Ask yourself why you missed the others. Were they even on your radar? (Do you need a new radar!?) Go back and look at the charts to see if they presented any good entry points, figure out what signals / setups they gave at those points and find a way to catch those setups when they appear in the future.

I hope you all find the routines as useful as I do. Now is a great time to work through the 10 questions and adjust your routines according to your self-analysis. The 10 questions are below.

1. How would I evaluate my performance overall?
2. What was my best trade of the year & what can I learn from that?
3. What was my worst trade of the year & what can I learn from that?
4. What opportunities did I miss?
5. What were the top performers in my universe?
6. What were the worst performers in my universe?
7. How would I evaluate my routines?
8. How can I improve my weekly routine?
9. How can I improve my daily routine?
10. How do I feel about my answers to the first 9 questions?