Stop & target levels
Lays out stop and target levels for both a long and a short from one entry. Use it when writing the order, so the ticket matches the plan.
Risk distance is the gap between entry and stop, and it is the unit everything else is measured in. Traders call one risk distance one R. A target set at two R sits twice that distance away from entry in the profitable direction. Working in R rather than in prices means the same plan reads identically whether you are trading an index at four thousand or a currency pair at 1.08.
The card gives both directions because the arithmetic flips and the flip is easy to fumble under time pressure. For a long, the stop is below entry and the target above. For a short, the stop is above and the target below. Reading the wrong pair puts your stop where your target should be, which turns a planned small loss into a position that closes for a small profit and then runs without you.
Choosing the reward to risk ratio is a real decision, not a formality. A higher ratio means a bigger payoff on the trades that work, but the target is further away so fewer trades reach it. A lower ratio wins more often for less each time. Neither is better in the abstract. What matters is whether your win rate clears the breakeven win rate that your chosen ratio demands, which is what the breakeven win rate calculator is for.
Set the stop from the chart rather than from the ratio. The stop belongs at the price that would tell you the idea was wrong, a level beyond recent structure or beyond the noise of the instrument. Once that is fixed, the target follows from the ratio, and the position size follows from the distance. Working in the other order, picking a size first and then finding a stop that fits it, is how traders end up with stops sitting exactly where the market likes to turn.
The last two rows step outside the price ladder and ask a different question: is this trade worth taking today? Target profit is what the planned trade pays if its target price is reached, the distance from entry to target multiplied by your position size. Share of daily target measures that against the day’s goal, which is your Staircase target per contract multiplied by the number of contracts your capital currently supports. Both halves are live, so raising the target on the Staircase or crossing into another contract moves this row without you touching anything.
The percentage is a sense of proportion rather than a rule. A trade covering most of the day’s goal is the day, and it deserves the scrutiny that implies: if it fails you have nothing else queued that comes close. A trade covering a few percent is fine in a series but tells you plainly that the plan requires a lot of them, and a lot of trades means a lot of costs. Watch for the case where the only way to cover the day is to size up, because that is the daily target quietly rewriting your risk rule, and the risk rule should win.
If the row shows no daily target set, the Staircase has no target per contract configured yet. Set it there and the context appears here; nothing else on this card depends on it.