Trade Plan Builder

How to use the trade plan builder

Before you place a trade, three numbers decide almost everything: where you get in, where you’re wrong and how much you’re willing to lose. Enter them here and the builder works out the largest position that keeps your loss within that amount (rounding to whole shares, contracts or 0.01 lots can make the actual risk slightly lower), plus the reward and risk-to-reward ratio if you add a target.

• Forex: pick the pair; the size comes out in standard lots and units, with the stop distance in pips. If the pair isn’t quoted in your account currency, it’s converted with the latest European Central Bank daily rate.
• Stocks: shares, rounded down to a whole share.
• Futures: whole contracts, using each contract’s tick size and tick value. If even one contract risks too much, it tells you and suggests the micro version.
• Crypto: units to six decimal places, with the margin needed if you add your leverage.

Then open the market on TradingView, copy the plan, or send it to your trading journal so the entry, size and risk are already filled in when the trade closes. Your balance, currency and risk % are remembered on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.

Save plans and keep to a daily risk budget

Press Save plan to keep a trade in My trade plans. Each plan stores the market, side, entry, stop, up to three targets, position size and risk, and you mark it Planned, Taken, Skipped or Cancelled as the session goes on.

• Daily risk budget: set a maximum risk per day, as a % of your balance or a fixed amount. The budget panel keeps risk on taken trades separate from risk on plans you haven’t taken yet, so five planned trades don’t count as five open positions. It shows what’s left based on taken trades, and what would be left if you took every plan. It only knows about trades saved here, not ones placed elsewhere.
• Up to three targets: close part of the position at each one. Set the % for each, or leave the boxes empty to split evenly. Reward and risk-to-reward are weighted by those percentages.
• Journal hand-off: once a plan is marked Taken, To journal opens your trading journal with it filled in. A plan that’s already in the journal shows “In journal” and can’t be added twice.
• History and backup: filter plans by date, market and status, and use Back up plans to download a file you can restore later or on another device. Plans live only in this browser, so clearing site data deletes them unless you’ve backed up.

Why size from the stop, not the other way round

Many traders pick a lot size first and then place the stop wherever the loss feels acceptable. That puts the stop in a random place. Planning works the other way: put the stop where the trade idea is clearly wrong, then let the position size absorb the distance. A wide stop means a smaller position; a tight stop allows a bigger one; the amount at risk stays the same. That’s how a run of losses stays survivable.

For single calculations see the forex position size calculator, the futures calculator and the crypto leverage calculator. To check how your trades are doing overall, the win rate and expectancy calculator shows what risk-to-reward you need for your hit rate.

The builder does arithmetic on the numbers you enter. It doesn’t include spread, commission, swaps or slippage, and it isn’t trading advice. Check contract sizes and margin with your broker.

FAQ

More free TradingView tools