What Should I Do Before Each Trading Day? (AM Check Routine)

What Should I Do Before Each Trading Day? (AM Check Routine)

Category: Daily Operations | Last Updated: April 2026

Who this applies to: This morning routine is for clients running Vector strategies through a VPS (QuantVPS or V2 Cloud) with NinjaTrader. If you're a newer cash-account client onboarded via Collective2, the VPS + NinjaTrader daily check does not apply to you — those platforms handle execution on the hosted side without you needing to log in daily.

Your morning check is the single most important habit for keeping Vector strategies running cleanly. It takes about two minutes when nothing is wrong, and it's the difference between strategies that fire correctly on schedule versus strategies that sit idle, stale, or mis-wired.

Your Daily AM Checklist

Before the trading session starts:

  1. Log into your VPS. Open Remote Desktop and verify NinjaTrader is running.
  2. Refresh your broker connection. Control Center → Connections → disconnect → wait a few seconds → reconnect. Wait for the green indicator.
  3. Verify data is flowing. Open one of your charts and confirm new candles are printing in real time. A frozen chart with a green connection still means the feed isn't live.
  4. Re-enable your strategies. Control Center → Strategies tab. NinjaTrader disables strategies on every restart and on connection drops, so re-enabling every morning is mandatory, not optional.
  5. Confirm each strategy's Account is correct. Especially if you run across multiple accounts — this is the single most common source of "trade fired on the wrong account" issues.
  6. Check for any license notifications. If NinjaTrader shows a Vendor Notification popup about your Vector license, open a support ticket immediately for reactivation.
  7. Confirm you're on the active contract month. Especially during rollover weeks — the chart instrument should show the current front-month contract, not an expired one. Use Tools → Database Management to update contracts if needed.
  8. Save your workspace once everything looks good (Control Center → Workspaces → Save).

If Something Is Off

  • Frozen chart with green connection → refresh the connection again (step 2), then re-enable the strategy.
  • Strategy won't enable / stays disabled → verify the broker connection is green, the correct account is selected, and your chart is on the right instrument and timeframe.
  • Vendor Notification / license error → open a support ticket; do not try to trade until the license is reactivated.
  • Expired contract / charts frozen during rollover week → run Database Management (Tools → Database Management) to refresh contracts.

If you can't resolve an issue yourself, open a support ticket and our team will remote in and investigate directly.

Bottom Line

Morning routine: log into the VPS, refresh the broker connection, verify data is flowing, re-enable strategies with the correct account selected, check for license or rollover issues, save the workspace. Two minutes on a good day, slightly longer when something needs attention. Consistency here makes the difference — skipping or half-doing this check is the top cause of clients seeing "strategy didn't fire today" issues.

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