As we progress as traders, we all develop our own ways of managing risk, establishing our rules and deciding on what trades to take. As part of my decision process, I have fairly unique way in which I decide my trade sizing that fits with my philosophy. So, let's start there. Part of risk philosophy is that I always want to take the same dollar risk on every trade, no matter the stop loss I set (or the price of the stock). In order to manage this, I have set up a simple spreadsheet (as part of my trade log) that allows me to quickly calculate the number of shares I should take to maintain a consistent risk target. A couple of notes. First, I do not take a trade based on my account size, the price of the stock or the capital required. I focus solely on the amount I am risking on the trade. I believe this allows me to balance my risk across my trades for the day and not find myself with something like 4 winners and 1 loser, but negative on the day since the loser was huge. All trades should deliver the same value, and carry the same risk. Some other traders do much the same using a concept of "trading units" or "risk units". Second, the risk I take on a any trade will always be consistent for the day and be part of my daily trading risk profile. Once I set these values pre-market, I will not change it for the day. I decide the values based on my previous performance, how I am feeling on the day, what other distractions I may have, and how long I am trading that day. (These parts of my philosophy I can explain at another time.) Here's an example. Assume for the day I have decided upon a profit target of $500 with a daily max loss of $300 and per-trade max loss of $100. Below is a sample chart. Let's say I want to go long $SQ off of the ABCD pattern presented and I am looking at taking a maximum of $100 risk (ie- max loss) on the trade, as per my plan. The current price is $90.35. A reasonable, but tight(!), stop-loss would be $90.05 (the bottom of the ABCD candles), or $0.30. Using my spreadsheet (below), I have set for the day my max $100 loss in cell C2. I simply plug the $0.30 loss target into cell C3, and cell C4 tells me I can take 330 shares. No more, no less! To deviate from this number would skew both the risk and potential reward I could expect from the trade. The only way I can change the share size is to either tighten my stop-loss (increasing the chance it'll be hit, but decreasing how far the stock has to move before I take profit), or loosening my stop-loss (which has the opposite effect). But, no matter what I decide, once I enter the trade, I WILL stick to that stop-loss target. My sheet has auto-calculated the target profit as I will always look for a trade that, at a minimum, delivers a 2:1 risk-reward ratio. This does mean that I have to be confident that $SQ has the possibility of going up at least $0.60. If not, I will pass on the trade. ) I keep this spreadsheet open in a small window on a secondary PC all day. This way, all I have to do is punch in the loss target number into C3 and it'll give me the shares I can trade. While simple, I find this keeps me focused and consistent on my share sizes and ensures I do not take a huge dollar risk on one trade and a lower risk on another. Because, as we all know, it'll be the big one that usually ends up to loser! I hope this helps. If you have questions or comments, please post them! If you have other calculators, please share! Below is a link to the spreadsheet. Remember to set your expectation low! It is simple. The spreadsheet also has a daily p&l log, a calendar that will trade you winning and losing days, and a couple of other tabs in case you find them useful. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qqTPpgUU2sDf-t8-yKso33KIwdfmL2rF Happy trading!