Trade Planner

One trade, every number that matters

Account and risk go in one end. Position size, margin, cost, risk/reward, break-even win rate, expectancy and the drawdown consequence come out the other, chained from the same inputs rather than computed separately on ten different pages.

Why these are chained rather than separate

Every number in the planner is derived from the ones before it. That is not a convenience — it is the difference between a plan and a set of unrelated answers.

Size a position on one page, check margin on another and estimate expectancy on a third, and nothing forces the three to describe the same trade. Change the stop and the position size should move, which moves the margin, which changes the leverage, which changes what a bad run costs. Chained inputs make that automatic.

The order the numbers have to come in

1. Account and risk first. The only two you fully control, and both are decided before you look at a chart.
2. Entry and stop next. The stop belongs where the idea is wrong, not where the loss is comfortable.
3. Position size falls out. It is a result, never an input. A wider stop produces a smaller position and the same dollar risk.
4. Costs come off the top. Spread and commission are paid whichever way the trade goes, and on a tight stop they are a material share of it.
5. Then the consequences. Break-even win rate, expectancy and what a losing run does to the account.

What it deliberately does not do

It does not tell you whether to take the trade. It computes what the trade costs if you are wrong and what it returns if you are right, and those are arithmetic. Whether the setup is worth taking is not.

It also assumes you are filled at your stop. In a gap or a fast market you will not be, so treat every figure as a floor on the loss rather than a ceiling. The individual steps are on the position size, risk-reward and expectancy calculators.

Reading the output

Two of the numbers it produces deserve more attention than the rest, because they decide whether the trade is worth taking at all.

1. Break-even win rate. What this risk-reward demands of you. If it sits above the rate your record actually shows, the trade loses money on average however good it looks.
2. The drawdown consequence. What a run of these costs. A plan that survives one trade and not ten is not a plan.

If the account currency is not the quote currency of the pair, the pip value has to be converted before any of it is correct — skipping that overstates the position by half on some crosses. The conversion is worked through in the position size guide.