I couldn't find a free trading calculator for fixed percent risk position sizing, so I wrote and released one. Free, open source, non-commercial. Just thought some might find it useful. http://positioncalculator.bedobi.com I'm looking to write some more apps, let me know if you have any ideas or requests.
The reason it does not exit is that the calculation is trivial. Most traders do the calculation in their heads.
Good for them. I don't trust myself to do even relatively trivial calculations without aid while trading. =) Actually I did find a bunch of existing calculators like this, none that were free, nor open source (very bad because there's no way of knowing if they're poorly coded and have subtle bugs). Also, most are old and require installing.
http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/del/stockcalcs/sizer.aspx Been using that one off and on for a while ^ Thank you for your contribution, I like it better. Contrary to what some think it is always good to have access to even trivial tools.
My sense from reading many posts over the years here on ET is that the vast majority of "traders" ( or at least ET members ) commit 99% of their focus and energy into getting into a trade and mundane topics like position management and portfolio/account risk gets the customary cliche platitudes and in reality risk and sizing are mundane afterthoughts. The critical unaccounted for variable missing from the stock "2 percent rule" is trade frequency and position holding time frames. IMHO the 2 percent rule is a great generalization, but ignores some logical modalities.
@Canna_King Cheers =D really appreciate it! @bone Thanks for your feedback. I agree that money management is too often merely an afterthought, and that it can't really be distilled into simply "never risk more than x% of capital per trade". For the app, as a designer I have some different options: No context: effectively cuts out those who don't know about money management as they won't understand what it is or why it should be used. A little context: useful for those who don't know about money management, while not too distracting for those who do. A lot of context: distracting for all users and is beyond the scope of the app. (which is to simply be a calculator) I've considered adding a link to some resource with in-depth explanations of money management and strategies. That would give better context while not being too distracting. On a side note, the 2% rule is often understood too simplistically and consequently gets a lot of undeserved flak. It is not to be understood simply as e.g. "take a single vanilla position in an asset and exit if loss equals 2% of capital. It can also go something like the below hypothetical and highly simplified example: Capital: $100 000 I identify a setup and go long $10 000 in SPX with x20 leverage. I set my stop loss at 1% of SPX. Thus, if SPX drops 1%, I loose $2000. (=2% of my capital) The stop loss is moving. Day 1: Let's say SPX rose by 1%. I'm now up $2000 on the trade. I add another identical position. Day 2: Let's say SPX rose another 1%. I'm now up $4000 on the first position and $2000 on the second one. I add another identical position. Day 3: Let's say SPX rose another 1%. I'm now up $6000 on the first position, $4000 on the second one and $2000 on the third. Day 4: Let's say SPX dropped 1%, triggering the stop loss for all three positions. I lost $2000 each on them this day = $6000, but I'm still making a $6000 profit.
I use an Excel spreadsheet to do the same calculation. I also include the target price and calculate the risk reward for the trade. This allows me to chose the best R:R if I have several set ups show up on my scans.