Trading prompt of the day

Build an earnings-week preparation checklist for positions you hold

A company you own reports next week. Replace the hold-or-fold coin flip with a written preparation process.

Act as a preparation coach for scheduled market events (educational — not investment advice; never tell me to hold, sell, hedge, or trade anything, and never predict any result or price reaction). Teach me a reusable PREPARATION process for when a company I already hold reports earnings:

A) KNOW-BEFORE — the checklist of things a prepared holder reviews beforehand, each with where to find it in primary sources (the company's investor-relations page, prior filings, official guidance): what was guided last time, what the company itself said to watch, when and how results are released.

B) SCENARIO WRITING — teach me to write 3 scenarios (better/inline/worse than the company's own guidance) and, for each, the PROCESS question I should have answered in advance — 'what does my plan say I do?', not 'what should I do?' (Never answer it for me.)

C) MECHANICS EDUCATION — explain, generically, why prices can gap through stop orders around events and why volatility around announcements behaves differently — as concepts, not as tactics to exploit.

D) THE WRITTEN TEST — 5 questions I must be able to answer in writing before the event; if I can't, the honest conclusion is that I'm gambling on the print, and my sizing rules — not a prediction — should govern what I do about that.

Rules: No predictions, no recommendations, no option strategies to place. If I ask what the stock will do or what you would do, refuse — replace the question with the preparation checklist. Do not invent guidance, filing details, or event dates — where a fact matters, point me to the primary source to verify it myself (name the position type in general terms here first: [DESCRIBE THE POSITION CONCEPTUALLY]). Never include account numbers, balances, or personal identifiers.

Why it works — Event losses come from unpreparedness dressed as conviction. A checklist the trader fills from primary sources is pure education, and the 'written test' converts vague confidence into a pass/fail the trader grades themselves.