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Trade Plan Builder: Position Size and Risk Calculator

Your screener found the setup. This defines the trade. Enter your entry, stop, and target — get position size, dollar risk, and written exit rules in one card.

r/swingtrading
“The screen finds uptrends, but it doesn't define a trade.”

Why this tool exists

That complaint shows up in some form under almost every screener thread we read. A scanner hands you twenty tickers that pass a filter. None of them tell you how many shares to buy, where the idea stops being valid, or what you are risking if it goes wrong. The tool found a chart. You still have to define a trade.

This builder closes that gap. You give it five things — your account size, the percentage you are willing to risk, your entry, your stop, and your target — and it does the arithmetic every risk manager does before a position goes on. Position size in shares, total dollars at risk, the value of the position, and the reward-to-risk ratio of the trade you are about to take.

Then it writes the plan down. Not a prediction, and not a signal: a set of mechanical rules about your own behaviour, including the price at which you are out. It also shows you what five consecutive losses would do to your balance at the risk level you picked, because that number is what talks most traders down from oversizing.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, saved, or remembered after you close the tab.

  1. Step 1 of 5: Account
  2. Step 2 of 5: Entry
  3. Step 3 of 5: Stop
  4. Step 4 of 5: Target
  5. Step 5 of 5: Setup
Step 1 / 5 · Account

The total capital you trade with — not your net worth.

Risk per trade
1%

You'd risk $0.00 on this trade.

How position sizing works

Position sizing starts from the amount you are willing to lose, not the amount you want to make. Pick a percentage of your account — most professionals use 1% to 2% — and that becomes your dollar risk for the trade. Then measure the distance between your entry and your stop, because that distance is what one share can cost you.

The formula is one line: shares = (account size × risk %) ÷ (entry price − stop price). A $25,000 account risking 1% has $250 to lose. If your entry is $50 and your stop is $47.50, each share risks $2.50, so you buy 100 shares.

Two rules matter more than the arithmetic. Always round the share count down, never up — rounding up quietly raises your risk above the number you chose. And when a tight stop produces more shares than your account can actually buy, the constraint is your capital, not your risk budget.

shares = (account size × risk %) ÷ (entry price − stop price)

What is R multiple?

R is one unit of risk — the dollar distance from your entry to your stop. If you enter at $50 with a stop at $47.50, one R is $2.50 per share. Every outcome then gets described in Rs instead of dollars, which makes trades of different sizes directly comparable.

A target two R away is twice your risk. Getting stopped out is −1R. Over a series of trades, R lets you judge a strategy without account size distorting the picture: a trader who averages +0.3R per trade is doing well whether they trade $5,000 or $500,000.

Position sizing questions, answered

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