This is the first blog post of 2026 and it will be an overview of the action plan for the first quarter of 2026.
2025 was a tough year for me, I made the difficult but ultimately correct decision to switch from scalping to swing trading. I believe in some part, due to this decision, I ended the year with a much needed profitable Q4.
Becoming a swing trader has been a revelation in several ways , one of which being I no longer need to restrict myself and be hyper focussed on just one or two assets on the 1 minute time frame. As opportunities take much, much longer to develop on the Daily time frame, I can safely track dozens of assets and not feel over stretched or likely to miss any opportunities.
The first objective for 2026 is to switch brokers. The motivation is to have access to a larger portfolio of assets to trade than what my current broker, ICMarkets allows. I spent this past week researching brokers, hunting for those that afford three key requirements, FCA regulated, a large portfolio of assets (including commodities and stocks) and no unreasonable overnight swap fees.
I believe that Pepperstone may meet these requirements so I have setup an account and am currently in the process of depositing a small amount of funds so that I can test withdrawals and take some trades to test execution over the next few weeks with particular emphasis on trading stocks as this is something I have never done before within a CFD account.
If all goes well and there are no gremlins or complete show stoppers with Pepperstone, I plan to transfer all of my trading funds into this account by the end of January.
A key area of focus for Q1 of 2026 will be to invest significant time into refining and creating better structure around my stock picking system. Although I have the foundations of a stock picking system based on Stan Weinstein’s sector and stage analysis that I have used with some success on my long term savings account albeit on the Weekly timeframe, the goal here will be to make the system somewhat more agile and aggressive while maintaining quality picks so it can be utilised on the Daily time frame.
Another key area of focus for Q1 of 2026 will be to implement better harnessing of the Commitment of Traders report as a further confluence within my overall strategy. I found the COT report all but unusable as a scalper as its influence always felt light years away from the 1 minute chart. As a swing trader, I believe the COT report will be an extremely invaluable confluence for many of the assets I now track. I want a rules based implementation of the COT report within my strategy for applicable assets.
There we have it, the plan for Q1 2026. With testing and switching brokers, refining my stock picking system and implementing analysis of the COT report as a confluence within my strategy, the next few months will be busy and exciting and I look forward to posting regular updates in the blog for various stages of the journey.
