In the Army, we learned to use checklists for just about everything. The main reason is it helps ensure the safety of everyone around us. It also helps with managing risk, staying consistent, and keeping us focused.

It’s the same with investing. Forming your checklist is a major step in preventing mistakes and overlooking key information. That’s especially true when you begin to trade or invest regularly.

Don’t believe me? Imagine you’ve just boarded a large commercial jet. As you’re getting situated and settling into your very uncomfortable seat, a flight attendant gets on the PA system. He says:

Hello everyone, I wanted to be the first to welcome you aboard Doomed Airways Flight 000 to nowhere; our pilot today is Captain Obvious and this is his first time flying this massive and extremely complex Boeing 737.

Captain Obvious took a class on safe flying and has a number of very successful pilot buddies who have assured him he can do it. He doesn’t actually know what all the lights and switches in the cockpit actually do, but he’s got a good idea of the basics. He also informed me that he doesn’t have the slightest clue of what to do if we encounter any weather, turbulence, or anything out of the ordinary.

But Captain Obvious is a somewhat stubborn man that feels extremely confident in his ability to fly this plane despite his lack of knowledge, experience, a checklist, or a contingency plan.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Would you fly with him?

Don’t Risk Your Future For The Sake Of Pride

If you’re sane, you likely answered “NO WAY!” but it’s not uncommon for the average retail investor to approach the markets in this exact manner. I personally know many traders who are “captain obvious.”

They take the market for granted. They only choose to see the gobs of money the men and women around them are making. And they ignore every warning sign that blinks in front of their faces. It usually takes a couple of losses totaling over $10,000 for them to slow down and build a repeatable system.

Now, as investors and traders, we’re not really putting our lives in danger. But we could easily be putting our happiness, retirement, and other things in jeopardy… And that’s just as bad, if not worse, because we’d have to live with our mistakes.

The good news is that I’m here to be your co-pilot. I’m here to guide you through the inevitable turbulence, unexpected volatility, and snafus that always occur in the market. As a military veteran, I place a great deal of emphasis on checklists, risk control, and contingency plans. This helps ensure safe and relatively uneventful trades.

That’s why I created a “little black book” that serves as a checklist to help my Profit Amplifier readers. It helps them see the market through my eyes and learn from my experience and mistakes. More importantly, it helps them to understand why I make the decisions I make. By following along in my logic, it adds confidence to their trading, eventually allowing them to make the best decisions themselves.

I’ve found that the most effective trading methods contain a detailed checklist or filter. It must get the trader or investor to a specific quantitative, objective target on which they can add a subjective twist. Just as a pilot needs a detailed checklist of items before taking off, you need the same to keep your portfolio in check.

Closing Thoughts

After many trials and tribulations, I created a five-step system that I use to find the best trades and ensure consistency. In a brand-new presentation, I show how I came up with this system – and how it’s led to gains of: 110% in 5 days on Boston Scientific, 100% in 12 days on AngloGold Ashanti, 94% in 1 day on Arcosa, 72% in 5 days on Exxon Mobil, 186% in 15 days on Wright Medical Group, and more…

While there are some special techniques that I incorporate into this algorithm, I’ll show you the bulk of the methods I use. That means you’ll be able to get the same edge…

But whether you follow my trade recommendations over at Profit Amplifier or not is ultimately not that important… If there’s only one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s the importance and value of following a checklist. It could one day make or break your portfolio.

In the meantime, if you’d like to check out my brand-new presentation, go here now.