Risk budget
—
The trade
Leave blank to size for total loss — premium goes to zero.
Caps what you spend, not just what you risk. Useful when the stop is tight but the contract is expensive.
Contracts to trade
—contracts
Risk per contract
—
Loss if stopped
—
Premium paid
—
Premium % of account
—
Profit at target
—
Reward : risk
—
Breakeven at expiry
—
Contract ladder
Contracts are whole units, so your real risk lands on a rung — never exactly on the budget. Gold rungs fit inside it.
The trade
Shares to trade
—shares
Risk budget
—
Risk per share
—
Loss if stopped
—
Position value
—
% of account deployed
—
Profit at target
—
Reward : risk
—
Your edge
0.5 is half-Kelly. Full Kelly (1.0) is correct in theory and brutal in practice.
Kelly says trade
—contracts
Payoff ratio
—
Full Kelly
—
Applied Kelly
—
Risk budget
—
Risk per unit
—
Loss if stopped
—
Expected value per trade
—
The trade
Contracts to trade
—contracts
Risk budget
—
Ticks at risk
—
Risk per contract
—
Loss if stopped
—
| Instrument | Tick size | Tick value |
|---|
Always confirm tick values with your broker.
Fixed-%
Cap the loss
Kelly
Scale to the edge
Same trade, two lenses. Fixed-% caps the loss at a set share of the account no matter what you think of the setup. Kelly sizes to your statistical edge — win rate times payoff — and gets aggressive fast when either input is optimistic.
It copies a text summary of the current tab — size, cost, max loss — for pasting into a journal or a message. Turn it off to keep the bar to just contracts and max loss.
Decide the most you're willing to lose on a trade — a percentage of the account — then let the math return the size. You never risk more than planned, whatever the contract costs.
Options
Risk per contract is (entry premium − stop premium) × multiplier. Leave the stop blank and it assumes the option goes to zero, so risk per contract is the full premium. Contracts round down, so you never exceed the budget.
Two things the spreadsheet doesn't show, added here because they bite options traders specifically: premium % of account (a 1% stop-based risk can still park 15% of the account in decaying premium) and an optional premium outlay cap that binds when the stop is tight but the contract is expensive.
Stock
Risk per share is the distance from entry to stop. Shares = budget ÷ that distance, rounded down.
Kelly
Kelly % = W − (1 − W) / R, where W is win rate and R is average win ÷ average loss. It's the mathematically optimal growth rate — and it assumes your inputs are exactly right. They aren't. Half-Kelly or less is the working default.
Futures
Ticks at risk = |entry − stop| ÷ tick size. Risk per contract = ticks × tick value.
Rules of thumb
- Most traders risk 0.5%–2% per trade.
- Aim for reward:risk of 2.0 or better.
- If the size comes back huge, the stop is probably too tight — check it before you trust it.
- On options, size off the premium stop you'll actually honor, not the one that makes the number look good.
Educational and informational only. Not financial advice or a recommendation to trade. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Every trade is your own decision.