One of the biggest mistakes I see traders make is treating trade idea generation and trade execution as the same thing. They’re not. In fact, the best traders I’ve ever known have learned to keep those two processes entirely separate — different charts, different workflows, and often even different mindsets.
Generating the Idea
Idea generation belongs to your analyst self; the part of you that studies structure, context, and rhythm. It’s slow, deliberate, and conceptual. This is where you define the “why” behind a trade.
In NADRO terms, this is where you’re reading narrative: where price is relative to value across multiple timeframes, where stop runs lurk, where we have confluence vs disagreement, and more. It’s about observing the auction, not reacting to it.
This work should happen on your context charts: higher timeframes, composite profiles, longer term VWAP. These are the tools designed to tell you where you want to do business and why. Tools that tell us what the market is attempting to do and how good of a job it's doing at it.
Executing the Idea
Execution, by contrast, belongs to your operator self. The goal here is not to think, but to perform. Execution lives on your execution chart — the fast timeframe where order flow, short term rhythm/rotations, price action patterns, and momentum shifts tell you when to act. When to put risk on, and how much.
When you’re in execution mode, your prep is already done. The decision is mechanical: you’re stalking price to check the boxes for YOUR criteria for pulling the trigger when your entry conditions are met. No debate. No scanning 5 different charts frantically to satisfy that deep desire to know what will happen next.
I was once having breakfast with Alex Haywood who runs Axia Futures in London. He touched on this concept and said it in a way I think is spot on. Essentially there are trade ideas, and then we can talk about tactics for "accessing the trade". I absolutely love that mental model for execution- "access the trade". And guess what? Sometimes we are never given "access" to trades! Accept that.
Why Separating Them Matters
Blurring these two roles is how traders end up frozen. They’re trying to analyze and act in the same moment; often times second guessing everything. It’s like trying to be the general and the soldier at the same time. Pretty tough to map out where an army is flanking your troops from 10 miles West while you're ducking from bullets in a trench somewhere! Impossible.
When you separate them:
- •Have job descriptions for charts in your chartbooks. Don't just have them all to use at any moment.
- •Your idea charts keep you patient and intentional. Use them to generate the ideas and find ways to keep that information in your mind. (More on that in this post:Focus Modes)
- •Your execution charts keep you focused and decisive. Use them to access the trade ideas, improve timing, manage risk, and more.
- •Having a plan and a process for this lets your mind know which role it’s in — observer or executor — and you avoid internal conflict.
The Takeaway
The analyst defines the opportunity. The operator takes it when given. And the more you respect the boundary between those two, the smoother and less error-prone your trading becomes.