Risk Per Trade Calculator
Check the exact rupee and percentage of capital a planned trade puts at risk if the stop-loss is hit.
Quick answer: The risk per trade calculator measures the downside of a position you have already sized. It multiplies the distance from entry to stop by the quantity to get the rupee loss if the stop triggers, then expresses that as a percentage of your capital. A gentle warning appears when the figure crosses two percent, a common rule-of-thumb ceiling for a single trade.
How to use it
Enter capital, the total quantity you will hold (lots multiplied by lot size), and the entry and stop prices. The output is the rupee loss at the stop and that loss as a percentage of capital. Quantity is in units, so a one-lot Nifty position is 65 units. The calculation excludes charges, which make the real loss slightly larger.
Formula
Rupee risk = |Entry − Stop| × Quantity ; Risk% = Rupee risk ÷ Capital × 100
Quantity is total units held. For lot-based instruments, Quantity = number of lots × lot size.
Limitations — what this calculator does not model
- Reports risk only if the stop fills at its exact price; slippage or a gap through the stop makes the realised loss larger.
- Excludes all transaction costs and charges, which add to the loss.
- Measures one position at a time and does not aggregate correlated trades into a portfolio-level risk figure.
- Assumes the position is held to the stop; it does not model intraday adverse excursions or a margin call before the stop.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the position size tool?
The position size tool starts from a target risk and gives you a quantity. This tool does the reverse: you supply the quantity and it tells you the resulting risk, which is useful for checking a trade you have already planned.
Should quantity be in lots or units?
Units. Multiply lots by the lot size first. One Nifty lot is 65 units, so three lots is 195 units.
Should I raise my risk after a losing streak to recover faster?
No. Increasing the fraction after losses — a Martingale approach — maximises the odds of ruin. Recovery comes from keeping the fraction small and consistent, not from bigger bets.
What happens to risk per trade if my positions are correlated?
The independent percentages no longer add up honestly. Ten correlated one-percent trades behave like a single near-ten-percent bet, so a portfolio-level cap on total open risk (portfolio heat) is required alongside the per-trade limit.
How likely is a long losing streak?
More likely than beginners assume. Even at a 50 percent win rate, over a few hundred trades the chance of at least one run of eight to ten losses is substantial, so sizing must assume streaks occur.
How does an automated system enforce the per-trade limit?
In a risk engine that checks every order before it is sent: it recomputes the rupee risk from the declared stop and rejects or resizes any order whose loss would exceed the configured fraction. Enforcement in code, not discipline, is what makes the limit real.
Runs entirely in your browser — no data leaves your device. Illustrative and educational only; real-world charges and market conditions apply in practice.