Weekly Trading Plan Template for Futures Traders: Start Every Week With an Edge

The Formula Is Simple. Execution Is Where Traders Struggle.

Cameron Bennion opens each trading week the same way, and he is direct about why: "Time to get this week going. Pumped to see how many more thousands we will pull in as a team. As always, it all starts with a weekly plan just like the video I shared above says. The formula is simple, holding yourself accountable is where most people struggle. Make this week count."

The formula referenced is not secret or complex. Every profitable futures trader operates from some version of a weekly plan. What separates the traders who execute consistently from those who improvise every day is not strategy sophistication — it is the discipline to complete preparation before trading begins, and the accountability infrastructure that keeps them honest when it feels unnecessary.

This article provides a complete weekly planning template used by YMI traders — the exact components, the rationale for each, and how to integrate the KPL levels, regime classification, and economic calendar into a weekly structure that starts every session with context rather than guesswork.

Why Weekly Planning Beats Daily-Only Preparation

Daily preparation is necessary but insufficient. Daily preparation tells you what to look for today; weekly planning tells you why today's setups matter in the context of the larger move. Three specific advantages:

Advantage 1: Weekly levels persist through daily noise. The weekly high, weekly low, and prior week's close are reference points that hold significance for multiple sessions. A KPL level that also aligns with last week's high has a different probability profile than a KPL level sitting in the middle of last week's range. Weekly planning makes this visible.

Advantage 2: Calendar events require week-level awareness. FOMC meetings, CPI releases, and NFP reports affect multiple sessions — not just the release day. The day before FOMC typically compresses volatility (uncertainty). The day after often produces continuation or reversal of the FOMC move. Knowing where these events fall in the week shapes which days are high-probability trading days vs. low-probability.

Advantage 3: Consistency tracking requires weekly review. A single-session loss provides almost no statistical information about strategy performance. Weekly P&L review, across 3-5 sessions with 10-30 trades, provides a meaningful sample for diagnosing execution issues, strategy performance, and regime fit.

The Weekly Trading Plan Template

Section 1: Weekly Market Context (Sunday Evening, 20 min)

Complete this before the week begins:

• Prior week summary: Where did ES and NQ close relative to prior week's range? Was it a trend week (directional) or a range week (rotational)? What was the dominant narrative (Fed language, earnings theme, macro data)?
• Weekly pivot levels: Calculate weekly pivot, R1, R2, S1, S2 for both ES and NQ. These define the expected weekly range and the levels where institutional order flow is likely to cluster
• Weekly economic calendar: Mark every red event for the week on a calendar. Note the days with 8:30 AM releases (CPI, NFP, PPI, retail sales) — these affect the overnight session and the opening gap
• Weekly bias statement: Write one sentence: "This week, ES is [above/below] last week's high/low, suggesting [bullish/bearish/neutral] bias. I will [buy dips / sell rips / trade two-sided] until price gives me evidence to change this bias."

Section 2: Daily Session Preparation (Each Morning, 15 min)

Complete before the opening bell every session day:

• Overnight range review: Where did ES trade overnight? Is price above or below the prior day's close? What is the overnight high and low?
• KPL levels for the session: Review today's KPL output. Identify the top 2 highest-confidence levels based on weekly context alignment. Add them to your chart as horizontal lines before the open
• Regime check: What is today's YMI regime classification (LOW/NORMAL/HIGH)? This determines baseline size and strategy selection
• Economic events today: Any red events at 8:30, 10:00, or 2:00 PM ET? If yes, mark no-trade windows in your plan
• Session setup statement: One sentence: "Today I will focus on [KPL level at X] and [KPL level at Y], using [mean-reversion / breakout / fade] logic, with max daily loss of [$X]."

Section 3: Intraday Execution Log (During Session)

For each trade taken:

• Entry time, price, size, direction
• Stop placement and rationale
• Target and rationale
• Exit: actual vs. planned (did you follow the plan?)
• One-sentence note on what the setup was and how price behaved

Section 4: Weekly Review (Friday Evening or Weekend, 30 min)

The most neglected and most important section:

• P&L summary: Total week, per-session breakdown, best day, worst day
• Execution adherence rate: What percentage of trades followed all rules (entry criteria, stop placement, target, size)? Target >90%
• Wins vs. plan: Of winning trades, how many hit the planned target? How many were cut early? How many were extended greedily?
• Losses vs. plan: Of losing trades, how many were stopped cleanly at plan stop? How many were widened or exited prematurely?
• Next week adjustment: One specific change to make next week based on this week's review — not a strategy change, but an execution change (e.g., "stop trading after 11:30 AM — 80% of my bad trades come after lunch")

The Accountability Layer That Makes It Work

A plan that is not visible to anyone becomes optional when willpower wanes. This is the core insight behind Cameron's insistence on public P&L posting in the YMI community: "It's pathetic to see none of you created trade plans."

Accountability is not punishment — it is the structural support that keeps the preparation process from being skipped when it feels inconvenient. Sharing weekly plans in a community (even a brief summary of the weekly bias, key levels, and economic events) creates a social contract: you wrote a plan, and your community knows what it said. This makes abandoning the plan for an impulse trade carry a different psychological weight than abandoning a plan no one else knows about.

The weekly review, posted or not, closes the loop: what did I plan, what did I execute, what was the outcome, and what do I change? Without this loop, preparation degrades into ritual without learning. With it, each week builds on the last.

Get the daily KPL levels and regime classification to power your weekly plan. YMI Intro Trader delivers the daily infrastructure — KPL levels, AI trade plans, and community accountability — that makes the weekly planning template actionable from day one.