Research Desk · Edition I
Ten questions every trader must answer before placing any order. A 14-page working document derived from institutional trading-desk practice, adapted for Indian retail participants. Designed to be printed and kept beside the screen.
Inside the Document
Each question appears on its own page inside the PDF, with a one-paragraph explanation of why it matters, specific instructions for answering it, and a named failure mode that the question is designed to guard against. A pull-out summary page is included for print use.
A Page From Inside
Every question gets a full page: the question itself, why it decides the trade, how to answer it in the moment, and the specific failure it is built to prevent. Here is the fourth page.
Question 4 · Risk
Is my stop loss placed where the thesis is invalidated, not where it is convenient?
Why it matters
A stop at a round number, or at the loss you are willing to stomach, is not a stop. It is a wish. The only defensible stop loss sits at the price that proves the reason for the trade was wrong. If that distance is too wide for your risk budget, the position is too big, not the stop too far.
How to answer it
Mark the level that invalidates the setup before you look at position size. Measure the distance from entry to that level. Size the position from that distance and your fixed risk per trade, never the other way around.
The failure it guards against
The convenience stop: placed where it is comfortable rather than where it is correct, then quietly widened in the moment to avoid being hit.
Thirteen more pages follow the same structure, one question at a time, plus a one-page pull-out summary for the screen.
Free. Fourteen pages. A4 portrait, print-ready. Enter your email to access the download link. We will send the PDF to the same address so you can forward it to yourself or a trading partner.
What the Document Argues
The problem this document solves is not a knowledge problem. Most retail traders already know what a well-constructed trade looks like. The gap between knowing and doing is what a written pre-trade checklist is built to close.
What it catches
The first three questions are designed to force a structural read before any entry-timeframe signal is acted on. Most retail losses originate here: a valid five-minute trigger taken against an unread four-hour regime.
What it prevents
Questions four to six are the arithmetic of survivability. A correctly sized loss at a structural stop with a two-to-one target profile is the only combination that tolerates a realistic win rate across a sample of trades.
What it exposes
Questions nine and ten audit the trader, not the chart. A journal entry completed before the order is placed, and an honest read of the emotional input, are the two steps most often skipped and the two whose omission most reliably predicts stagnation.
Before You Download
Is the checklist really free?
Yes. Enter your name, email, and phone number, and the download link is on the next page, with a copy sent to your email so you can keep it. There is no charge and no card required.
What format is the download?
A fourteen-page PDF, A4 portrait, print-ready. One question per page with room to work, plus a single-page pull-out summary to keep beside the screen.
Do I have to be a Bharath Shiksha student?
No. The checklist stands on its own. It is drawn from the same pre-trade discipline taught in Stage 1, but it is useful to any trader on any platform.
Why do you ask for a phone number?
So we can reach you about the checklist and the Foundation material, if you ask us to. We do not sell or share your details, and you can ask us to delete them at any time under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
How is this different from a trading plan?
A trading plan defines your strategy. This checklist is the final gate you run in the last minute before an order, to confirm the specific trade in front of you actually fits that plan.