How to Create a Trade Plan

Trade plans are a central feature of Tandem Trader. In this guide, we'll explain how they work and how to create a trade plan.

What Is a Trade Plan?

A Trade Plan is a short-term, time-sensitive post that focuses on one or more tickers. They're designed to be flexible so you can use them to: 

• Share your favorite setups or trade ideas
• Take notes on stocks you're watching
• Track watchlist results

Trade Plans can be public or private, and each plan can include any number of tickers and charts. You can create an unlimited number of Trade Plans to record and share your ideas. 

How to Create a Trade Plan

Step 1: Open the Trade Plan Editor

You can open the Trade Plan editor from any Tandem Trader page. Just click on the + icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, then select Trade Plan.

Step 2: Title Your Plan

Give your trade plan a title that reflects its content. A good title might include:

• The strategy you're discussing ("Swing Trading Game Plan for $NVDA Earnings")
• One or more tickers ("Technical Analysis of Software Leaders: $MSFT $ADBE $CRM")
• The name of the scan your plan is based on ("Breakout Scan Ahead of GDP Release")
• The date of your plan ("Stock Watch List for 2/24/26")

You must title your trade plan before you can save, preview, or publish it.

Step 3: Write Your Plan

There are two ways to write your trade plan: using the Post Editor or by Quick Chart Share. We'll cover both.

Writing a Trade Plan with the Post Editor

The Post Editor is open by default when you create a new trade plan. It gives you the most flexibility to write a trade narrative, share custom charts, and format your content. The Post Editor also lets you add links, images, and videos to your plans.

To create a Trade Plan with the Post Editor, just start writing your content. Here are a few tips:

• Organize your thoughts with headings and subheadings
• Highlight key content with bolding, underlining, or bullet points
• Capitalize any ticker to make it interactive (e.g. use AAPL instead of aapl)

To add a custom chart, click Insert Chart. Then select your ticker. You can adjust the chart to show any time interval and range, plus add indicators and drawings.  

Writing a Trade Plan with Quick Chart Share

Quick Chart Share is perfect if you want to publish a Trade Plan quickly and focus your analysis on daily charts. You can use it to jot down notes on a ticker you're watching or share a list of stocks from your scanner.

Activate Quick Chart Share using the toggle just below your plan title.

Enter the ticker you want to share a chart for, then add your commentary and choose a chart timeframe. Quick Chart Share supports daily charts on 1, 3, 6, and 12-month timeframes.

If you want to include multiple charts in your Trade Plan, click Add Row. You can share an unlimited number of charts in a single plan.

Step 4: Adjust Your Plan Settings

The Watch List Style box on the right side of the editor allows you to adjust key settings for your Trade Plan. These include:

• Timeframe: Day, Swing, or Both
• Direction: Long, Short, or Both
• Market Cap: Small, Large, or Both
• Content Visibility: Public or Private
• Allow Comments: On or Off

The Timeframe, Direction, and Market Cap settings don't affect how your Trade Plan is displayed. However, they do make it easier for you and other traders to search for your plan and understand at a glance what it's about.

You can save any combination of settings as your default. Adjust your settings, then select Save as Default at the top of the style box.

Step 5: Preview & Publish

When your Trade Plan is finished, you can see how it looks using the Preview button in the upper right-hand corner of the dashboard.

If it's ready to publish, return to the editor and click Publish.

If you choose to make your Trade Plan public, it will be visible to all Tandem Trader users immediately after publishing. Anyone can access it from the Trade Plans dashboard. It will also appear in the main content feed.

Saving Trade Plan Drafts

You can save any Trade Plan as a draft and return to it later. Just click Save Draft.

When you return later, click Load Draft in the upper right-hand corner of the dashboard. A pop-up will display all of your unpublished drafts. You can also delete draft plans from this pop-up.

Editing and Deleting Published Trade Plans

Here's how to edit or delete a Trade Plan after publishing it:

1. Navigate to your content. From any Tandem Trader page, click on your account icon in the upper right-hand corner. Select My Content.
2. Find your Trade Plan. You can search for your Trade Plan by title or use the Content Types filter for Watch Lists.
3. Edit or delete. Click on the three dots on the right side of your Trade Plan, then choose whether to edit or delete your plan.