Table of Contents
In this interview, trader Louis Hancock breaks down his journey from scattered efforts to a focused, rules-driven process. He matters because he shows how a regular retail trader can build a calm, repeatable routine—choosing quality setups, respecting risk, and sticking to a simple playbook when the market gets noisy.
You’ll learn exactly how Louis structures sessions, defines A-setups, and applies risk rules that prevent tilt. We’ll unpack his pre-market checklist, execution flow, and journaling tweaks—so you can copy the parts that fit your style and turn a scattered approach into a simple trader strategy you can run day after day.
Louis Hancock Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Big Picture: What Louis Prioritizes
Louis keeps trading compatible with real-life—structured sessions, simple setups, and strict risk, so progress doesn’t depend on perfect conditions. That lens matters whether you’re part-time or full-time: you build a routine you can repeat, not chase every move. He’s talked about balancing work and trading, and about refining habits to make execution automatic.
- Trade only the sessions you can show up for, for alert (e.g., London and/or New York), and ignore everything else.
- Predefine one or two “A-setups” and pass on all “maybes.”
- Cap daily trading time (e.g., 2–4 hours). If you miss it, you miss it—no evening revenge sessions.
- Keep complexity low: a handful of prices and rules you can recall under stress.
Session Routine & Preparation
You can’t control markets, but you can control how prepared you are when the bell rings. Louis leans into consistency: a short checklist, the same charts, and the same timing every day so the brain recognizes the playbook instantly. In earlier conversations, he framed this as building habits that fit around work and life.
- Night before: mark tomorrow’s HTF levels (prior day high/low, weekly open, key swing high/low, session VWAP anchors).
- 30 minutes pre-session: write a one-liner “if-then” plan for each A-setup (e.g., “If London sweeps yesterday’s low and reclaims it, I’ll buy the reclaim to VWAP.”).
- Define kill-switches in advance (e.g., after 2 losers or –1R net, stop trading).
- Minimum viable environment: quiet space, one notebook page per day, same chart template every session.
Market Structure & Levels
The point isn’t to predict; it’s to react at known prices with known behavior. Structure gives you the “where,” and a simple trigger gives you the “when.”
- Map HTF bias on H4/H1 using swing highs/lows and session ranges; don’t counter the active H1 swing unless it’s an A-setup sweep/reversal.
- Levels to pre-mark: prior day H/L, Asia range extremes, weekly open, and any clean 60-minute imbalance edges.
- Only trade at or around those levels—price in the middle is “dead air.”
- If the price hits the level and doesn’t produce your trigger within two candles, stand down.
A-Setups: Trigger & Confirmation
Louis boils entry down to repeatable triggers so there’s no ambiguity once the price is at your level. Keep one continuation and one reversal pattern and ignore everything else.
- Reversal A-setup: liquidity sweep (wick through marked level) → immediate reclaim with strong close → enter on first pullback that doesn’t break the reclaim.
- Continuation A-setup: pullback to VWAP/AVWAP or prior range edge → lower-timeframe compression breaks in trend direction → enter on break-and-retest.
- Confirmation window: 2–3 candles max on execution timeframe (M5/M15). If it stalls, skip it.
- Never “anticipate” the trigger; write what you need to see, then wait to see it.
Risk & Sizing (Hard Rules)
If you can’t repeat your risk, you can’t repeat your equity curve. Louis emphasizes staying power—small, fixed risk, and fast cuts beat opinion.
- Fixed risk per trade: 0.25–0.5R of daily equity; never scale mid-drawdown.
- Max daily loss: –1R; max weekly loss: –3R. Hit either and stop trading.
- Stops live on structure (beyond the wick that proves you wrong). No “mental stops.”
- If spread/volatility widens so your structural stop exceeds 1R, reduce size—not the stop.
Trade Management & Exits
Entries are just the invitation; exits compound the edge. Louis favors simple, rules-first management to prevent hesitation.
- First scale: at +1R move stop to breakeven; take 30–50% off.
- Second scale: at next pre-marked level (e.g., prior day mid/VWAP/opposite range edge), trail below/above last M5 swing.
- If price returns to entry after +1R without hitting next target, exit remainder flat—no “hope mode.”
- News within 10 minutes? Either be out or have a hard stop locked; never widen stops for news.
Timeframes, Tools & Chart Template
Clarity comes from repetition, not from more indicators. Keep the same stack so pattern recognition builds day by day.
- HTF: H4/H1 for bias and levels. Execution: M15/M5. No faster unless managing intra-candle risk.
- Tools: session separator, VWAP/anchored VWAP (from key highs/lows), ATR(14) for expected range.
- Two clean charts only: one HTF map, one execution window with the same drawings each day.
- Hide indicators before entry—reveal them only at management checkpoints to avoid indicator-led impulses.
Play Selection & Filter Rules
Saying “no” is edge. Louis uses simple filters to keep only the highest-quality attempts.
- Trade your A-setup once per session direction; if it fails, skip the immediate second attempt.
- Skip the first 5 minutes after a major data release; wait for a close that confirms direction.
- If three conditions aren’t aligned (level + trigger + session flow), don’t trade.
- No trade if you slept <6 hours or can’t commit full focus window.
Journal & Review (Tiny, Daily, Useful)
Journaling isn’t a diary—it’s a scoreboard and a microscope. Louis frames it around repeating what works and deleting what doesn’t, not storytelling. A short daily loop compounds fast.
- Log only what changes decisions: setup type, level, trigger, R, outcome, screenshot.
- Tag mistakes (late entry, no trigger, moved stop). If a tag appears twice in a week, write a counter-rule to prevent it.
- Weekly: export tagged trades; delete the worst recurring behavior and double down on the best-performing setup/time.
- Build a “best trades” gallery: 10 screenshots of perfect A-setups to prime your eyes each morning.
Mindset & Habit Anchors
Discipline is environmental. Louis often underscores that habits around a day job or busy schedule are a feature, not a bug—they force focus and rule-following. That’s the point: design your day so the right action is the easy action.
- Pre-commit: write your two if-then plays on paper before the session; only those are tradeable.
- Micro-reset after any loss: stand up, 10 deep breaths, re-read rules, wait one candle before any new order.
- After Green Day: stop when plan says; no “victory laps.”
- Reward only rule-following, not P&L (e.g., checkmark for perfect execution even on a loser).
Scaling & Consistency Path
Growth should be boring. Louis’s approach favors increasing size only after proof of discipline, not after a single hot streak.
- Level up risk after two consecutive green weeks with >20 trades and a mistake rate <10%.
- When you scale, cut the number of markets to one until you stabilize again.
- If you break a kill-switch or move a stop, size auto-resets to the prior tier for one full week.
- Keep a rolling cap on open risk: never more than 1R across all live positions.
Example Daily Checklist (Copy/Paste)
A checklist makes execution plug-and-play. Use this verbatim to keep yourself on script.
- Mark: PDH/PDL, Asia high/low, weekly open, HTF swing edges, VWAP/AVWAP.
- Bias: H1 swing up/down/neutral? Note it in one word.
- Today’s two if-then plays are written in full.
- Risk set: 0.25–0.5R, daily –1R stop, news times noted.
- Triggers defined: reversal sweep-reclaim or continuation pullback-break-retest.
- After entry: manage to +1R → BE and partial, then trail to next level.
- End of session: log, tag mistakes, screenshot, 2-minute review.
Troubleshooting: Common Failure Modes
When things wobble, simplify. Louis’s fixes remove discretion and restore structure fast.
- Overtrading: hard cap of 2 trades per session; timer ends session at planned stop time.
- Chasing: entries only at pre-marked levels; if the price is mid-range, the platform is disabled using a “read-only” layout.
- Moving stops: platform OCO with server-side stops; disable hotkeys for order edits.
- Tilt: two-loss kill-switch and a written “reset ritual” stuck to your monitor.
Minimal Rule Card (Carry It)
When in doubt, go smaller and get stricter. This pocket card keeps you honest.
- Trade only two if-then plays at marked levels.
- Wait for the exact trigger; 2–3 candles max.
- Fixed risk, structural stop, –1R daily max.
- Scale at +1R, BE, then trail to level.
- Stop at the time or rule; journal and leave.
Size Risk First: Small Fixed R, Big Survival Advantage
Louis Hancock starts with the one lever you fully control—risk per trade—and he won’t move forward until it’s locked. He defines a small, fixed R before any analysis, so every setup lives inside the same survival math. That keeps losing streaks from snowballing and turns wins into cleaner multiples, not random dollars. By shrinking R, Louis buys time to learn, adapt, and let the edge show up without blowing the account.
In practice, he ties position size to a structural stop so the distance to invalidation equals one R—never the other way around. Volatility informs the lot count, not the conviction meter, and spread slippage is included before entry. He caps the damage with a hard daily stop around –1R and a weekly stop near –3R to kill tilt. Only after multiple consistent weeks does he nudge R up, keeping the same playbook and discipline intact.
Let Volatility Pick Your Size, Not Your Ego
Louis Hancock treats volatility like a speed limit—when it’s high, he drives smaller; when it’s low, he sizes normally and stays patient. He uses recent range (think ATR or session range) to translate a chart stop into a position size that always equals one R. No conviction-based overrides, no “it looks safe” add-ons—if the distance to invalidation expands, size automatically shrinks. This keeps outcomes comparable across regimes and prevents a hot market from turning a normal loss into a portfolio dent.
Operationally, Louis measures a 14-period ATR, maps a structural stop, and solves for quantity so ATR-adjusted risk equals his fixed R. If the required stop makes size microscopic or slippage likely, he either halves risk or skips the trade entirely. Ahead of major news or sudden volatility spikes, he pre-cuts size by 50% and caps total correlated exposure so one burst doesn’t tag multiple positions. In quiet regimes, he resists the urge to oversize, waiting for confirmation and taking closer first targets to keep expectancy stable.
Diversify by Underlying, Strategy, and Duration to Smooth Drawdowns
Louis Hancock doesn’t diversify for the sake of variety; he diversifies to keep the equity curve tradable. He splits risk across uncorrelated underlyings (e.g., an index future vs. a major FX pair), distinct strategy types (trend continuation vs. reversal), and staggered durations (intraday vs. multi-day) so no single regime wipes out a week of progress. If two positions share the same driver—same beta, same catalyst, same session—he treats them as one and sizes the basket to a single R. This way, a bad day in momentum won’t also be a bad day in mean reversion and a bad day in swings.
In practice, Louis caps correlated exposure at 1R across any “theme,” keeps at least one position in a different asset class, and staggers exits so he’s not forced to act on everything at once. He pairs defined-risk option structures for swing attempts with tighter, stop-based intraday plays, preventing one time frame from dominating risk. Duration is deliberate: fast trades pay the bills; slower trades express the bigger idea without emotional noise. By diversifying what he trades, how he trades it, and how long he holds, Louis Hancock reduces variance without diluting edge—and that makes consistency possible.
Trade Mechanics Over Predictions: Triggers, Stops, and Targets Only
Louis Hancock cares far less about calling direction and far more about executing a checklist. He defines an entry trigger at a pre-marked level, a structural stop that proves him wrong, and a target based on the next objective area—then he pulls the trigger or he doesn’t. If the trigger doesn’t print within a couple of candles, he passes; no “it’s probably going” exceptions. This keeps him out of chop and frees him from the guesswork that wrecks consistency.
On the chart, Louis Hancock wants the same sequence every time: level → trigger → fill → management. He moves to breakeven after a +1R push, scales partial at the next level, and trails under/over the most recent swing—never widening a stop to “give it room.” News windows are binary: either flat or fully committed with a hard stop already in place. By making mechanics non-negotiable and predictions optional, he turns trading into a repeatable operation instead of a rolling debate.
Choose Defined Risk When Uncertain; Reserve Undefined Risk for Best Setups
When conditions are foggy, Louis Hancock defaults to defined risk so a single mistake can’t snowball. He wants losses capped up front, whether that’s via tight structural stops or option structures that lock in the maximum downside. This frees him to take valid but lower-conviction opportunities without emotional baggage. If clarity improves and the market shows its hand, he’ll step back into his standard playbook with normal sizing.
For Louis Hancock, undefined risk is a privilege earned by alignment: clean level, strong trigger, supportive session flow, and recent win-rate confirmation. Even then, he keeps position size modest and pre-plans exits at objective targets, refusing to “let it ride.” If any pillar breaks—volatility spikes, correlations bunch up, or the tape turns choppy—he immediately reverts to defined-risk structures. The rule is simple: uncertainty narrows the playground, while A-plus conditions justify more freedom, never the other way around.
In the end, Louis Hancock’s edge isn’t a secret indicator—it’s a stack of simple, enforceable rules that survive real life. He anchors every decision to fixed-R risk and ATR-aware sizing so one fast market can’t undo a week of work. He trades only when he’s alert and only at pre-marked prices, letting clear triggers—not opinions—decide entries. When uncertainty creeps in, he defaults to defined risk; when alignment is A-plus, he still keeps stops structural and targets objective. Across the week, he spreads exposure by underlying, strategy type, and duration so a single regime can’t bully his equity curve.
Just as important, Louis treats discipline as a system, not a mood. Each session starts with two written if-then plays and ends with a brief, tagged journal so he can delete repeat mistakes and double down on what actually pays. News windows are binary, kill-switches are real, and scaling happens only after consistent execution—not a hot streak. If you copy anything, copy that operating rhythm: small fixed risk, volatility-aware size, level→trigger→management mechanics, and a daily loop that makes the right action the easy action. That’s how Louis Hancock turns a straightforward playbook into durable results.
