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Sizing

Trading Mindset I Am a Software Developer and a Passionate Trader Over the past five years, I have explored nearly every aspect of trading—technical analysis, intraday trading, MTF, pre-IPO investments, options selling, F&O, hedging, swing trading, long-term investing, and even commodities like gold and crude oil. Through this journey, I realized that **technical analysis is only about 20% of the equation**. The real game is **psychology and mindset**. I have distilled my learnings into concise points below—insights that have shaped my approach and will continue to guide me in my version 2.0 of trading. I hope they prove valuable to you as well. --- ### **Position Sizing** One of the most important aspects of trading is choosing the right position size. Your trade should never be so large that it causes stress or worry. Keep it at a level where you can stay calm, no matter how the market moves. ### **Set Stop-Loss and Target Before Placing a Trade** Decide in advance when you will exit a trade—both at a loss (**stop-loss**) and at a profit (**target**). This helps maintain emotional balance, preventing extreme excitement or frustration. ### **How to Calculate Position Size** - Use **technical analysis** to identify your **stop-loss** and **target**. - Example: If CMP is ₹100 and your stop-loss is at ₹94 (₹6 risk per share), determine your risk tolerance: - ₹3,000 risk ➝ **500 shares** (₹3,000 ÷ ₹6) - ₹1,200 risk ➝ **200 shares** (₹1,200 ÷ ₹6) - Adjust quantity based on how much you're willing to risk. ### **Setting Target Price & Risk-Reward Ratio** The most important factor in setting a target is the **risk-reward ratio**. If your stop-loss is ₹6, your target should be at least **₹6, ₹9, or ₹12**. ### **Why Is Risk-Reward Important?** Let’s say you take **10 trades**—5 go in your favor, and 5 go against you. If your risk-reward ratio isn’t favorable, you could end up in a loss. Example: - You **lose ₹6** in two trades → ₹12 total loss - You **gain ₹3** in three trades → ₹9 total profit - **Net result: -₹3 loss** To ensure profitability, your **reward should be equal to or greater than your risk**. A **1.5x or 2x risk-reward ratio** is ideal. ### **Flexibility in Targets** Even when the price reaches **Target 1**, you can **book partial profits** and let the rest run with a **trailing stop-loss**. --- ### **Managing Multiple Trades** This is **very important**. If you're a beginner, **limit yourself to 2 trades**, and even if you're a pro, **avoid more than 3-5 positions**. **Example:** If you have **₹2 lakh**, make sure you have **only 2 trades open at a time**. Add a third stock **only when you close another position**. --- ### **How to Deploy Capital** Patience is key. If you have **₹1 lakh**, **divide it into 4-5 parts** and buy **in small chunks over time**. **Why?** The **nature of stocks** is to move in waves—rising, facing profit booking, then breaking previous highs. Instead of investing everything at once, **buy in staggered amounts** to ensure your **average price stays close to CMP**. --- ### **Avoid Market Noise** When trading, **stay in your zone**. Social media posts can make you feel **slow compared to others**, but they don't show the full picture. Avoid distractions like: - Direct stock tips from **news channels** - P&L snapshots from traders - Following too many **analysts on social media** Instead, **listen to expert views**, but stay disciplined with **your own strategy**. --- ### **Stock Selection** Stock selection has **two elements—technical and fundamental** (I'll write a separate post on this). Always **buy a stock that you can hold even in your darkest times**. **Example:** - Choose **blue-chip stocks** with **high market caps & strong promoter holdings** - Never **buy a stock just because it’s in momentum** - If a stock **turns into a forced SIP**, it’s not a good buy Pick stocks with **a long-term story**—even if you fail to exit at the right time, you should be comfortable holding them. --- ### **Accept That It’s the Market, Not You** Many traders fail because they **don’t admit that the market is unpredictable**. Losses happen because of volatility, not necessarily poor strategy. **Example:** - You lose a trade and **try improving your method** but face another hit - Some losses **are simply beyond your control** Most of what happens in the market is **not in your hands**—including stop-loss triggers. **Accept this reality,** and focus on **risk management** instead of revenge trading. --- ### **Keep Separate Trading & Investment Accounts** Trading and investing **are different**. If you keep them **in the same account**, you’ll: - **Book small profits** on investments - **Hold short-term trades in losses** Having **separate accounts** keeps **your goals clear**. --- ### **Don’t Let the Market Dominate You** Even full-time traders **shouldn’t obsess over the market**. Limit your **screen time to 2-3 hours during market hours**. **Why?** - You can’t **act on global markets until 9:15 AM IST** - Even if a **war or tariff issue** arises, **you can’t do anything until market open** - Overthinking leads to **over-trading**, which drains money Instead, **invest time in developing new skills**. --- ### **Do What Suits You, Not Others** If you're good at **swings, stick to swings**. If you're good at **intraday, do intraday**. Don't follow **what works for a friend—trade based on what suits you**. --- ### **Avoid FOMO** Don't **stress** if a stock jumps **20% in a day**. Stock **accumulation zones, demand/supply areas, profit booking**, and **retests** happen **regularly**—opportunities will always come. Even traders who claim they made **20% in a day** **don’t share how often they got trapped chasing stocks**. --- ### **Stop-Loss Is Your Best Friend** No, stop-loss is your **best friend for life**. **Example:** - Suppose you **enter 10 trades in a month**. - **6 do well** and you book profits. - **4 go against you**, but instead of exiting, **you hold** because you believe they’ll recover. - Next month, you **repeat this cycle**—adding more positions. Over time, **this builds a portfolio of lagging stocks**, and suddenly, **your losses dominate your portfolio**. --- Even Experts Face Losses Even professionals with **advanced research teams lose money**. Retail traders often **believe they can avoid losses by analyzing a few ratios**, but **losses are part of trading**. A stop-loss ensures **you stay in the game long-term**—instead of holding onto losing trades indefinitely. --- Take a Break & Restart Taking breaks is **crucial**. If everything is going wrong, **don’t hesitate to press the reset button**—step back, analyze, and refine your approach. A fresh mindset leads to better trading decisions. (I’ll write a detailed post on this soon.)
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by manideepcs024
Sizing & how to manage riskThe easiest part, if everything's perfect you just trade as much as the market allows before the diminishing returns hit hard. However usually everything is not perfect at the beginning, so continue reading. Logically, in order to operate successfully & continuously (you can't market make much you if loose money aye?), your equity chart should represent a smooth movement from down left to the top right corner. What factors affect an equity chart? 1) Market activity itself; 2) An operation principle (strategy/system); 3) An operator(s). So our potential sizing formula/algorithm should, lol, contain these 3 factors. Makes sense? 1) If market activity is too narrow we increase size, if market activity is too wide we decrease size, otherwise if its normal we don't change anything; 2) After a systemic loss we decrease size, after a systemic profit we increase size, otherwise after a +- breakeven we don't change anything; 3) If there's real confidence about what's coming you increase size, if there are doubts you decrease size, otherwise you don't change anything. Number 3 needs a lil clarification, I didn't say "you're confident/have doubts", I said "there's confidence & there are doubts". It's not only you and quality of your operation, what you also need to feel is whether all of us, as the collective, whether the market itself is confident. And there you can use all the available info, all the other assets, all the non-market data. Understand that we are all the market, you're part of it when you trade. Every1 looks at the same data. The Collective. The Feedback loop. Ok, so how to increase/decrease exactly? First you need to calculate the maximum size. 1) Come up with the maximum tolerated loss in money for one trade (more on that later); 2) Look at the chart and find the maximum distance between the entry & exit-at-loss points; 3) Find out the maximum size that won't allow you to loose more than max tolerated loss in case of passing the distance you've just found out. These numbers should be reevaluated when there's a change. Don't forget that a change can be seasonal, just like volatility on ES futures changes after US open. Imagine you ended up with 70 lots. Divide it by 7 equal chunks. Why 7? Because of number of factors, we had three, 3*2 + 1. So now one chunk is 10 lots. One decrease/increase = 10 lots. Then you start trading at 4 chunks (40 lots) (3 + 1) (this way you got more freedom, you can both increase and decrease after the first trade). Then you just and increase/decrease according to the plan. For example, you made a profitable trade at 4 chunks, and the next level is very tight, so you have 2 systemic increases, so you increase by 2 chunks (20 lots). If you hit zero chunks you make a imaginary trades and then come back to the real account when your size becomes one chunk, if you hit 7 chunks you don't go higher (maybe couple of 8 chunks trades might make sense tho). You're free to fine tune this adjustments live, you can eg see a serious vola increase and decide to decrease by 13-16 contracts instead of 10. Calculating these things precisely won't magically turn a loosing operation into a profitable one, but will make you focus on the wrong thing & steal your energy. Don't calculate, trust yourself & let your brain approximate and feel da thing. Let's come back to the maximum tolerated loss in money. Making it 1% or 2% or 37565476% of deposit doesn't make any sense. First of all, a deposit can be financed externally, with a credit line, with a prop shop etc. You deposit should never be touched, only the risk capital above this deposit. Second, what you care about 4 real is how much risk capital do you have. For example let's say $10k, that's actually a good amount of money. Third you divide the risk capital by 7, and end up with max tolerated loss in money for one trade. No, consecutive loss streaks have nothing to do with coins & binomial distributions, so number 7 is not worse, but better cuz it's simpler. I think 4-5 consecutive losses are "OK", but 10 is too many. P.S.: if you've lost you risk capital/thing ain't going, you just stop, evaluate, fix the problems, test on simulator & start fixing another risk capital, and go again, until the victory!
CME_MINI:ES1!Education
by gorx1
Position Sizing (Course #0)My very first course was going to be the winning rate. As I wrote down the other ones, I realized that position sizing, understanding what it is and how it works, was actually the most important part of it all. Therefore, I have decided to create this course #0 as the one you MUST take first to understand the other stuff. Understanding position sizing is very tricky actually. The very first time I learned about it was with Crypto Cred. He’s got a lot of great courses on trading and Technical Analysis, I also recommend you checking him out. So here is what most people think about doing: I will buy 100% of my account balance into bitcoin ($1,000 account), my account size will then be $1,000. Or, I will buy with 15% of my account, so my position will be $150. Even better, I will go 10x and my position size will be $10,000. This is great and all, but this is NOT how you should look at it. Whenever you trade, you MUST – SHALL – HAVE TO HAVE – an plan on where and why do you enter, where you need to exit at profit AND where you need to exit at loss. If you don’t want to accept that, no good. If you want to invest into something, you MUST – SHALL – HAVE TO HAVE – an plan on where and why do you enter, where you need to exit at profit AND where you need to exit at loss. If you don’t want to accept that, no good. It’s like driving, you must know when to turn, accelerate and break. So, because you will have a plan, you will know OR you will decide where to put your Stop Loss. For example, you want to put your stop loss the 20 EMA. Or, you want to put your stop loss at the low of the previous candle. Or, you want to put your stop loss 0.5% below your entry. Or, you want to put your stop loss at the previous support level. Once you have decided where to put your Stop Loss, based on your strategy and on the structure of the market/chart, you will need to decide how much you will risk on that trade. Basically, trading is like betting. You will bet/risk an amount of money, hoping to make a profit. To give you an idea, 1% risk is cool, if you want fast results you can go to 2-3% (of your account balance). Some great traders like to do 5-20%, but this is super high risk. 5-20% on an intraday trading strategy (in and out during the same day), then this is degen to me. On an intraday 1-2% risk per trade is good. So now, you are starting to be good at position sizing: you know where your stop loss will be and you know how much you will risk. Let’s go back to our examples of stop losses. Example 1: you want to put your stop loss the 20 EMA Example 2: you want to put your stop loss at the low of the previous candle Example 3: you want to put your stop loss 0.5% below your entry Example 4: you want to put your stop loss at the previous support level On the above chart, here are the distance between your entry and the stop losses: Example 1, the 20 EMA is 0.28% below your entry. Example 2, the low of the previous candle is 2.30% below your entry. Example 3, the stop loss is exactly 0.50% below the entry, like you decided. Example 4, the previous support level is 4.60% below your entry. Now let’s calculate your position size: Magic Formula: Position size = Risk % / Distance to SL % Example 1: 1% / 0.28% = 3.57 This means your position size will be 3.57 times your account balance. Example 2: 1% / 2.30% = 0.437 This means your position size will be 0.437 times your account balance, so a little bit less than half of it. Example 3: 1%/0.5% = 0.50 Your position size is equal to half your account. Example 4: 1%/4.60% = 0.22 Your position size will be 0.22 times your account. So now, do you understand that leverage should only be necessary when your strategy calls for a Stop Loss that is positioned at a distance that is less than your risk %? This is example 1. You should NEVER think “I want to use 10x” just for fun. You should only apply leverage because your position size calculation told you so. Conclusion: Position Sizing is the calculation of how much should your position be, so that when you hit your SL, you only lose what you planned losing. Position size = RISK % / DISTANCE TO SL %
Education
by Maddrix_club
1
How i open position in current market conditionThought it be nice to share you how I position my trades at the moment. Most positions i trade i look for a nice little bounce to form an Higher Low in regards to the BTC dump that made everything dip. So the last Low is my target point and my Stop Loss is placed in case a Lower Low is made. So in this example I'm placing my SL below 302 as if it would be making a Lower Low. I position my 5% SL target and then calculate my entry point at 5% about the SL. As the market sometimes moves suddenly I place a market order of 50$ (just example).. my entry level will be 100$ in this case and then I'll place my first SL at 3% from entry for half my position (75$). I'm experimenting now with placing another order at 1% below that first SL and I close my whole position at 5% from entry. The reason for the second entry is simply to catch a wick might it happen. That entry will often be above the former LOW thus creating a Higher Low and my position will still be bigger than started. When it moves up I will still have a decent position. Again - this may not be text-book 3% SL but f* that.. we need to try something new every now and then.
RLong
by WHEN1110011
Position Sizing in Trading - Educational VideoHello traders. In this Educational video I will talk about Position Sizing in trading. You know as a trader that the first part that you have to do when you're ready to get into a trade is how much you are willing to risk per trade. Position sizing refers to the number of units invested in a particular security by an investor or trader. An investor's account size and risk tolerance should be taken into account when determining appropriate position sizing.
NASDAQ:AAPLEducation
by dionthas
11