A fundamentals checklist for a swing trade

Everything in the first six modules reduces to a one-page checklist that takes about twenty minutes per stock the first time and under ten once you are practised. It does not generate trades. It decides whether a trade generated by your technical process is allowed, how big it may be, and what could kill it before your stop does.

The checklist

Section A is the filter (module 1): hard rules that exclude the stock. Section B is the context: soft factors that adjust size and expectations. Section C is the event calendar: dated risks during the planned hold.

A. Filter (any "no" excludes the trade)

#	Check	Source	ACME
1	No earnings within the planned hold (or a plan for it)	IR calendar	11 days; plan: exit before
2	Revenue growing year on year	Latest 10-Q	+12%
3	Free cash flow positive, or runway over 6 quarters	Cash flow statement	+$220M
4	Debt/EBITDA under 4 and no maturity within 18 months	Balance sheet, notes	1.58; 3 yrs
5	No pending offering, lock-up expiry or ATM programme	8-Ks, S-3 filings	None
6	Short interest under 20% of float (for longs, note squeeze risk; for shorts, exclude)	Exchange data	2.1%
7	Market cap over $300M and average dollar volume over $5M	Any quote page	$4,000M; $48M

B. Context (adjusts size and expectations)

#	Check	ACME	Effect
8	Margin trend over four quarters	Gross and operating both rising	Positive
9	Estimate revisions over 90 days	Up 2%	Positive
10	Forward P/E vs sector and own history	16.7 vs sector 22, own median 18	Neutral/positive
11	Quality: ROIC, interest coverage	11.7%; 10 times	Positive
12	Share count trend	Down 2.5% a year	Positive
13	Insider activity, last 6 months	Two small scheduled sales	Neutral
14	Sector ETF trend and ratio to index	Uptrend; ratio flat	Neutral
15	Rate regime and stock type	Rates rising; cyclical	Mild negative
16	Credit spreads, last month	Stable	Neutral

C. Calendar (dated risks during the hold)

#	Event	Date	Plan
17	Earnings	+11 days	Exit day before or reduce to gap size
18	Central-bank meeting	+6 days	Note; no action
19	Index rebalance	None pending
20	Sector peer earnings (read-across)	+4 days (a competitor reports)	Watch the reaction

Scoring it

Section A is pass or fail; ACME passes all seven. Section B is not summed into a number, because the checks are not equally weighted and a false precision invites over-trading. Instead, count the negatives and read them: ACME has one mild negative (rate regime) against six positives. That is a clean context.

Section C decides the plan's shape. ACME's earnings are 11 days out, so a two-week swing must either finish before the report or accept a reduced size through it. Item 20 is often forgotten: a competitor reporting four days before ACME will move ACME. If the competitor beats and rallies, the whisper on ACME rises (module 4); if it misses on the same end-market, ACME will gap down on someone else's news.

Key idea: Section A says whether you may trade it; section B says how much and with what expectations; section C says what could hit you before your stop does. Fill all three before the entry, not after.

How the checklist changes size

The risk management course sets 1R as a fixed fraction of the account. The checklist does not change 1R. It changes whether the trade gets a full 1R, a fraction of it, or nothing:

Result	Size
Fails any section A item	No trade
Passes A; B has three or more negatives	Half of 1R
Passes A; B has one or two negatives	Full 1R
Passes A; B clean; C has an event in the hold	Full 1R until the event, then per plan
Passes A; B clean; C clear	Full 1R; candidate for the best setups

For ACME on a breakout at $40 with a stop at $38: 1R of $300, one mild negative, an event on day 11. Full size, 150 shares, with a written plan to exit on day 10 at the close unless the trade is already stopped or at target.

The second candidate

Run the same checklist on ACME Mirage, the cash burner from module 2, which has the same breakout pattern.

Section A: revenue +25% (pass), FCF −$45M with cash of $140M and quarterly burn of about $30M, so runway 4.7 quarters (fail: under 6), an active ATM programme (fail), short interest 26.7% (note for longs; exclude for shorts).

Two failures in section A. No trade, long or short. Not because the chart is wrong, and not because Mirage cannot rally (heavily shorted cash burners rally violently), but because the range of outcomes includes a dilutive offering overnight, and no stop covers that. If it rallies without you, that is the cost of the rule, and it is cheaper than the alternative.

Keeping it under ten minutes

The first time through, each item takes a search. After a few weeks:

Items 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 12 come from one page of any free fundamentals site plus a glance at the latest 10-Q's cash flow statement.
Items 1, 17, 18, 20 come from one earnings calendar and one economic calendar.
Items 5, 13 come from the company's EDGAR filing list (8-K titles and Form 4s).
Items 6, 14, 15, 16 come from three charts you keep open all the time: short interest for the stock, the sector ETF ratio, and a high-yield bond ETF.

Print the checklist, or keep it as a template in your trade journal. A trade without a completed checklist is not a trade; it is an impulse with a ticker.

Try it: Run the full twenty-item checklist on the next technical setup your scanner produces. Time it. Then run it on a stock you already hold and note whether it would have passed on the day you bought it.

Recap

The checklist has three sections: a hard filter, a soft context read, and a dated event calendar.
Section A excludes; section B adjusts size and expectations; section C shapes the plan around events.
Do not sum the context into a score; count and read the negatives.
The checklist never raises size above 1R; it only reduces or removes it.
After practice it takes under ten minutes from three pages and three charts.