every profitable trader I know does the same thing before the market opens the traders who blow accounts skip it every single day it takes 30 minutes. it's boring. it's repetitive there's nothing exciting about it but it makes money nobody will ever post it on their Instagram story and it's the single highest-ROI activity in all of trading higher ROI per minute than any strategy, any course, any indicator, any Discord alert the 30-minute pre-session protocol: PHASE 1: daily chart analysis open the daily chart. one candle. one question: are we sweeping highs or lows today? expansion signs: strong close through a key level,clean displacement candle reversal signs: wick rejection the previous day, external liquidity swept and closed back in the range. can't tell? that's your first and most important signal of the day if the higher timeframe is unclear, you sit that day out you just saved yourself $200-500 in bad trades this happens roughly 2 days per week accept it PHASE 2: external liquidity marking mark previous day high (PDH) and previous day low (PDL) mark the weekly high and weekly low mark swing highs and swing lows on the 4H chart these are your buyside and sellside liquidity levels where liquidity rests is where the market will reach this is your "where will price go FIRST" map PHASE 3: internal target marking mark fair value gaps price has not yet filled these are your "where will price deliver AFTER the sweep" targets the sequence is always: raid external liquidity THEN deliver into internal arrays that's the foundation of the model on every timeframe PHASE 4: the pre-market candle read check the 6 AM candle (4 or 6-hour timeframe) did pre-market sweep a liquidity pool you marked? if yes, the morning move may already be in play did price start expanding towards your draw on liqudity? did it expand through and hold? (continuation signature) this 2-minute read gives you a hypothesis before the session even opens PHASE 5: write the plan in ONE sentence "looking for longs into the 15-minute FVG if we sweep the overnight sellside first" "looking for shorts if price raids PDH buyside liquidity and gives a bearish reversal signature on the lower timeframe" ONE sentence. if you can't write your plan in one sentence, you don't have a plan if you are not 100% certain and confident, do not take that trade. PHASE 6: set alerts and hard rules set price alerts at the liquidity levels you marked your phone buzzes when price reaches them you don't need to watch write your hard rules for the day: max 2 trades a day risk: 1% maximum done at 12:00 PM these aren't guidelines now they're non-negotiable you wrote them after that? do nothing, just sit with your plan. don't adjust it. don't second-guess it. don't open Twitter to see what someone else thinks about the market. your analysis is done. your levels are marked. your alerts are set. your rules are written. close the charts until 9:15 AM. no staring. no adjusting. no "let me just check one more time." no Discord. no Twitter. no YouTube. no one else's opinion between your preparation and your execution. your plan was written before the open. your alerts are set there is literally nothing productive you can do between now and 9:15, except contaminate your own analysis with noise. it's 30 minutes of work that nobody wants to do because it's not exciting enough to post about which is exactly why it works I teach this exact strategy, the full model in my FREE discord. everything you just read is what we do every single morning. link in bio.