Most beginners plan a trade in the wrong order
Short · Risk & sizing · October 3, 2026
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The entry comes first because it's moving. Then a stop invented halfway down, while it hurts. Then a size picked by how good the story sounded, and a target invented later to justify holding on. Every one of those gets decided at the worst possible moment.
The lesson in writing
Most beginners build the trade in exactly the wrong order, and it costs them.
What it is
For them the entry comes first, because it's moving. Then a stop invented halfway down, while it's in motion, while it hurts. Then the size picked by how good the story sounded. Then a target invented later, to justify holding on.
Every one of those gets decided at the worst possible moment: inside the trade, while it hurts, while the money's moving.
How it's worked out
Run it the other way and it's discipline. It's already been decided. You don't have to do the hard thinking — it's done before you're exposed to the risk, and before things start to go sideways.
The order is the method: your risk first, then the stop that gives it a price, then the targets measured off that stop, then the share count the arithmetic hands you — and the entry last.
Where Olympia calculates it
It's why your risk sits at the top of the window where you log a trade, above every other number: everything below it is worked out from it.
Every time, the picks get the blame. It's the order that did the damage.
Example numbers, not a member's: the risk line and the plan fields in Olympia's I'm In window. Arithmetic on those inputs, not a forecast.
