The rules
- Risk 1% of equity per trade. Position size is calculated from your stop distance — never chosen first.
- 2% and 3% are also allowed, so you can see what size does to a streak. Those trades are flagged in the journal and cost discipline points.
- Only take trades with at least 2:1 reward to risk, measured from the actual fill.
- One open trade at a time.
- Every trade has a stop at a technical invalidation level. Stops may be tightened, never widened.
- After 3 losses in a row, the session locks. Review before trading again.
- No trades while feeling FOMO or the urge to win money back.
- Write the thesis and trigger before entry; review every trade afterwards.
Why 2% and 3% exist
The rule stays at 1%. The larger sizes are there to be felt, not recommended: the same stop, the same target, the same R — only the money changes.
- 1% — rule size: one stop-out costs $1000 of a $100,000 account · three of them cost 3%
- 2% — double the rule: one stop-out costs $2000 of a $100,000 account · three of them cost 6%
- 3% — triple the rule: one stop-out costs $3000 of a $100,000 account · three of them cost 9%
How fills work
- Market orders fill at the next bar's open. If that open is already past your stop or target, the order is cancelled.
- If a bar opens beyond your stop, you're filled at the open — this is how Black Monday stops behaved.
- Otherwise stops fill at the stop minus slippage: 5% of that bar's range, multiplied by how large the bar is versus the 20-bar average (up to 4×).
- If stop and target are both inside one bar, the simulator assumes the stop hit first.
- No commissions, financing or spreads are modelled. Real results would be worse.
Timeframes
- Every market condition is built from daily closing data: trade it on daily bars, or switch to weekly for the slower view.
- Black Monday has more options than the rest — the 5-minute opening-bell session, on top of daily and weekly.
- Because the other scenarios are daily, a stop is only checked once per bar: a move that happened and reversed inside a day is invisible to the simulator.