Being an utter beginner, I’m unsure how to prepare for the trading day. During the week, I have CNBC on but know that isn’t going to truly help me set S/L or T/P levels. Any tips?
Well I cant speak for the rest but the trading week just begun. I am starting it by sitting here eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup and going to head off the church in a minute. When I get back I will be ready for the trading week. On the daily bases since I work I take a nap after work since it is the slowest time of the market might as well get some rest. Plus it takes quite a bit of beauty sleep to look this good 
Then I grab a bite to eat open the charts and since my job is done for the day. I grab a nice cold beer. Thats about it I am now ready to start my trading day. Hope that helps
…clever, I walked into that.
Well what else did you expect lol. I dont care to watch anything on my tv. The only news I get is bad news and if it hold anything even close to the market then it is almost always wrong. I just pop open the charts (I actually never close them till market close) and go from there. Not sure what you were looking for
In my part of the world we sacrifice a goat on the first day of the first week before trading starts to the Gods of Pips.
Yea, tv is a no no here as well. I don’t need rubbish talking chickens for a brainwash. Funny thing is they talk about internet addiction but nobody talks about tv addiction while I bet most ppl are tv addicted, lol.
I start with looking at my bot parameters. If some show there is no trade the day then I look for something else. If there is a trade the day then I watch them and shift that looking for something else to a later time. What news comes out I usually know the evening before, but it doesn’t change a pip for my bots.
If I do not watch my bots I answer emails, sometimes try to search for new edges while looking at price action or make a backtest of a new strategy or try to find the “holy grail” indicator. Plus every day I ask the same question: Do I need a new vps provider or not? 
Explains alot after seeing your last trading week. Now all I got to do is find a goat and I am set.
Bucks that sounds alot like me except but the only bot I try tweaking is me. Still alot of fine tuning required or if you ask the wife its damaged goods and should have been returned while the warranty was still valid. But I am one good goat away from the holy grail. Every day I get a little closer (a little older to but mmm yeah thats another story)
as a newbie your goal right now is not even to try to focus on making money. You have to explore and play and have fun- figure out what stuff you like to do, not like to do, and develop your ‘daily preparations’ based on your needs. Trying to jump from noob to pro is like barely being able to hold a bat and trying to swing in the world series. I mean, do you even know if you like playing baseball? You have a huge journey ahead, got to enjoy the process, whether its making a cup of coffee before you start trading, reading news reports first, drawing, indicators, whatever.Only you can do you best.
Ha ha, nobody/nothing is perfect, not even here. Today there was a network issue and not even my bot could trade. 30 pips would he made. Anyways, that’s part of business.
Albeit getting older is like with great wine. We can only get better. Worst case is we can keep the level up. 
Looking at how its all jumbled up and how tough it was today, I think this weeks or months sacrifice needs to be something much bigger than a goat. A Buffalo or a Bison perhaps?
Light the fire, bring out the Todi, lets get cracking! Lets do the Kumbaya for some Bingo Bongo Bango!!!
In Scotland it’s traditional for male and female traders to run a mile butt naked before the trading week starts. However, since winter is getting closer and the weather is turning colder, it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell the males from the females !!
It’s actually illegal to do that in public where I come from. Lucky you !!
ROFL!
That explains why December tends to be the slowest and toughest month to call trades! Most are not willing to do their part in offering appeasements to the God of Pips!
LOL!
LMAO well luckily I live in florida where the weather stays pretty warm year round
My family is going to Florida summer of 2012 for 4 weeks. I might give it go when I get there !!
My normal routine would be:
- Have my levels of interest highlighted on a 4H chart from the previous night. These are just areas where price has reacted strongly before so chances are there’ll be activity there again.
- When I get up in the morning I scan Bloomberg equities and commodities to see what happened overnight in Asia to get an idea of whether risk is maybe on / off so far that day.
- Have a read over Forexlive to catch the Asia wrap-up and whatever bits and pieces have come through after that.
- Have a quick scan through the Dailyfx real-time news though I don’t pay it too much mind - just in case anything pops out there that isn’t on forexlive.
- Make up my mind how I think things are looking for the day and what the hot button items for the day might be, wait for levels to come into play and try to catch the trend.
- SLs under recent swing lows and TPs I seem to make up as I go along half the time as I watch price action unfold. Probably not the best practice for TPs but it works ok for me.