Good day to all,

I'm taking this space to share my calculator to make fast calculations on your plans. Will post screenshots of it an explain each line to inspire you to make your own or whoever is interested in the spreadsheet, email me at slopezu@yahoo.com, will be glad to share the file for free. 

So the calculator looks like this on the file:

Explanation

1. Equity - you type your EQUITY, NOT YOUR BP!! - it must be modified each time your equity capitalizes as you take losses. I use an excel spread sheet as a trading journal/log so I have a total equity cell referenced as my equity, so i just type my positions and it automatically recalculates, this as an idea for whoever wants to make it yourself. 

2. % of Equity at Risk - not Buying power, you can use leverage for the right reasons and this is only to be able to participate in more opportunnities NOT to over risk your capital, which I don't reccomend unless you have an account under 5k. (different rules for capital builidng here not described in this post, check my other blog posts on why position sizing on small accounts is important to be ovver 500 shares, specially for ST accounts). Use MAX % Capital - I use 5-10% MAX!, i use a low equity account, leverage will make you blow up on margins, if you invest 100% of capital, your share size will be so big that you won't have wiggle room for stocks to move in volatility and will get margin called very often and normally brokers close your position if it is at underequity risk, you will get blown out VERY FAST. BE CAREFUL, FOCUS ON MAX 1-2 PLAYS AT A TIME! and the risk of ALL YOUR POSITIONS SHOULD NOT BE MORE THAN 10% of your equity (my personal preference).

3. Max Equity at Risk - Calculation - This is a result and it's not typed, it just shows % of Equity at Risk in dollar amounts to have an easier control of how much dollars you are willing to loose if you get stopped. 

4. Price entry / Avg Pos - you must type here your price entry or actual avg cost, if your scaling in or out, you must re type the actual avg pos. 

5. Stop loss price - you type here your price target for stop loss. Each plan should be very meticulously planned, so you must understand how your pattern evolves and how far your willing to risk price action as per it allows wiggle and gives a clear picture of it going the wrong way, so will get better with experience which will make you force yourself to learn what picture to look for and what pattern to expect to evolve to, don't look for arbitrary positions or weird %'s, this stop loss must be the level in which you would considred your plan and pattern failed. 

6. Cents to stop - this is a calculation and once price entry and stop loss price are typed, this will show how many cents are there to your stop loss. i recommend to have an idea of the ATR  for the stock as if you have a bigger cent amount than the average range, I would consider risk to be higher than the possibility of getting it back. If ATR is 10 cents, means the stock moves in an average of 10 cents per time frame checked, (price range must be calculated in higher time frames and lower time frames are for entry points) and if you have a stop loss higher than that, your price target would also be off, so what would the probability be? remember at the end its all about price action and how it behaves around a pattern, probability does play logic in your patterns, find statistics on your PLANS, don't trade blindly or without an edge, catalyst or the hype alone are not enough, because hype is not easy to quantify. 

7. % Loss - Calculation, used in the format of Future Value/Initial Value - 1 * 100, where it just shows how much price % volatility would move to trigger your stop loss, important to compare against price % moves. % of highs, % of lows, etc., any other relevant comparisions you consider important with your plan. 

8. Ideal Targets in risk reward expectations - These are calculations of cents to stop * 1,2 or 3. 3 profit targets as my personal preference, being the first profit target the same amount of cents to stop as risk, though at least you should be receiving your risk amount, it wouldn't make sense to risk 10 dollars to make just 1 dollar. 3 Targets with a 3:1 ideal goal, allows to keep winners over loosers and allows to take off the greed factor in the operations which lead to change your plan on the go and giving back profits. The profit targets give you the share price target to use as exit, though it's calculated from your entry point/avg pos. 

9. % Profit Target - These are calculations in the format of Future Value/Initial Value - 1 * 100. These show the % in price change from entry price to the price target calculated on point 8. Important to compare against price % moves. % of highs, % of lows, etc., any other relevant comparisions you consider important to manage with your plan. 

10. Scaling Tables - I added 3 Scaling tables which will be used according to volatility and uncertainty. These are in fifths (1/5), fourths (1/4) and thirds (1/3) of your full "position for plan". Scale in and out of a position allows to keep risk and add to winners accordingly, but be careful scaling around your positions, as each time you add, your avg cost gets affected and your price entry would change versus your stop loss affecting your calculations. These tables should be used as your experience and plans dictate, though some of the positions will have more volaitlity than others, fundmanetal catalyst which don't converge generating uncertainty, Overall market sentiment, etc., so it's important to use any parameter to scale in, the tables just help with the size on a 100% position, so if your 5% equity risk on a stock shows a 500 position size as planned position, your 100% position IS 500 shares, the scaling tables represent % of that whole position size which will allow easier amounts to type in your order box. 

* Size is calculated from dollars at risk not % at risk - One thing is to risk % of capital, but it translates into position size x cents in play. Remember we make cash no matter you $$$ investment size, share size will dictate how much $$$ cash you make or loose against cents and must be in the ranges of the calculator, and your MAX DOLLAR LOSS which has to be LOWER THAN YOUR EQUITY for obvious reasons. This means in a 5k account, are you willing to loose 5k? of course not, are you willing to loose 10% which means a 500 usd loss? It makes more sense, and also as your capital goes down or grows, your position will be modified to RISK SAME % from that new capital, helping you to take lower risks AND/OR also compound your profits which make your capital grow faster. 

* The calculator uses 2 boxes, one for longs and one for shorts. If any typed informations shows negative on "profit" lines, means the data is wrongly typed. Be careful how to type and how to calculate, it's normal to make mistakes but must try to keep them as low as possible to avoid loosing money. 

Hope you guys enjoy it and hope it gives ideas to any of you to optimize your trading. Take care and safe trading!.

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Safe trading!