Stand-alone learning materials
Use these independent learning tools to write down a scenario, test your assumptions, and review the decision. The fictional figures are for practice, not recommendations.
General education only, not personalized financial, investment, or trading advice. Trading involves risk, including loss of capital. A stop or exit is an instruction, not a guaranteed price or maximum loss. No outcome is promised.
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Avoid entering account numbers, passwords, or information you would not want saved in this browser. The sample worksheet figures below are fictional and not recommendations.
Worksheet 01
Build a conditional plan before drawing a conclusion. If you choose no trade, explain why; entry and exit fields may be marked N/A.
Name the instrument, product type, and whether this is observation, paper practice, or a live-market review.
Record the date and timezone, session, chart or decision timeframe, and any event or liquidity context you checked.
Separate what you directly observed from what you are assuming. Note the source and timestamp for any market information.
State the idea in one sentence, then write one plausible explanation that would point the other way.
Describe the trigger, order type or price condition, the time it remains valid, and what you will do if price gaps past it.
Write the planned profit-taking or time-based exit conditions and how you will review partial fills.
Describe what would show the thesis is wrong or no longer current. An exit instruction may fill at a different price or not fill.
List missing information, spread or liquidity changes, events, limits, or emotional/process cues that mean wait or stand aside.
Choose an educational planning status. No trade is a complete and valid choice.
Record what happened after the decision, whether assumptions held, any difference from the plan, and one process lesson. If no order was placed, say so.
Fictional worked example
All names and figures are invented for education. They are not market data, a trade signal, or a promise of performance.
Worksheet 02
Record the assumptions behind exposure and size, then consider costs and a worse-than-planned outcome. The example formula is only for a simplified share-like unit.
Use a rounded, optional reference amount. Record existing positions, open risk, concentration, and relevant correlation or portfolio limits.
Write the loss or exposure limits you chose for this exercise and how you set them. Do not use the sample figures as a recommendation.
Name the unit or contract multiplier and explain the product-specific valuation method. Options, futures, and leveraged products need their own payoff and margin analysis.
Record the planned entry, invalidation or intended exit price, and the distance between them. If there is no trade, write N/A and why.
List estimated commissions and fees plus any borrow, funding, spread, tax, or other relevant costs. Say how you estimated each amount.
Describe plausible slippage, gaps, partial fills, halts, thin liquidity, or inability to exit. State which assumptions are not guaranteed.
Estimate the planned-invalidation case and at least one worse case. Include quantity, multiplier, costs, and execution assumptions in each calculation.
Show how you derive quantity or contracts, the multiplier, gross or notional exposure, and the modeled loss. Explain any rounding or cap.
List limits or unknowns that make the appropriate choice no trade, paper practice, or waiting. Include how you will avoid increasing risk after a limit is reached.
Choose an educational planning status. No trade is a complete and valid choice.
Compare actual or observed execution with the assumptions, note any limit breach or unexpected cost, and record one process change. For no trade, review whether the stand-aside rule was followed.
Fictional worked example
All names and figures are invented for education. They are not market data, a trade signal, or a promise of performance.
This is arithmetic practice for the invented share-like scenario only. A real stop may not execute at its stated price, and a gap or unavailable exit can exceed the assumed limit. The calculation is not a position recommendation.
Budget formula: $10,000 × 1% = $100. Units: floor(($100 − $4) ÷ ($50 − $48.75 + $0.05)) = 73. Exposure: 73 × $50 = $3,650. Planned case: 73 × ($1.25 + $0.05) + $4 = $98.90. Gap case at $47.75: 73 × ($2.25 + $0.05) + $4 = $171.90. Costs and prices are invented solely for this example.
Do not use these examples as current market information or as a reason to enter a trade. Pausing, paper practice, and making no trade are all valid learning decisions.