Risk Reducer - Description and how to use

Risk Reducer is a trading panel for manual trading with risk-based order preparation.

It helps you:

• choose risk
• place Stop Loss on the chart
• calculate lot size automatically
• preview the full trade
• confirm market execution manually
• review basic account-level trading stats

Main features:

• Calculates lots size based on risk and SL selected
• Auto set TP based on RR coefficient
• Display floating P/L of all trades
• Close all positions button
• Statistics page

How to use / detailed description

Main panel is organized in such a way that it has Header, Main area, and Footer.

Header contains status info and validation messages, minimize/maximize button, settings button.

Main area contains tabs and main working area.

Footer contains floating P/L info and Close all button.

HEADER

Info and validation messages give you various information regarding panel and orders. Their purpose is to inform trader about various important things. They are color coded so know visually what is happening. There are 4 colors: green, red, blue and amber.

Examples of messages are:

• Ready
• Algo trading disabled
• Market Closed
• Position opened
• Minimum lot applied
• Invalid BUY stop loss
• Insufficient margin.

Minimize/maximize button has a job to minimize or maximize main panel. When panel is maximized, we can see the whole area of the panel (default state).

When panel is minimized, only header and footer are shown so traders can focus on the chart but still have overview of the status and P/L. Header always shows you the status, and footer always shows you floating profit/loss and Close all button.

Settings button opens a modal dialog on top of main panel. You can switch between dark and light theme there.

FOOTER

Floating P/L shows profit/loss of all open trades combined. It shows account currency next to the amount. It also shows P/L as the percentage of balance next to the amount.

Close All button is used for closing all open account positions. After clicking on Close All button, confirmations dialog opens. After confirming with Yes, all account open positions are instantly closed and info message is shown in the header.

          

MAIN AREA

On the top of the main area there are 3 tabs: Order, Stats and Limits. Clicking on a tab changes panel view. Tab with the blue line above the text is the currently selected tab.

Order tab

Order tab has a trading purpose. I will describe workflow and all functions here.

• RR button (On/Off) - enable/disable placing of automatic Take Profit based on risk reward coefficient.
• RR = 1.00 means TP = SL . If SL is set 20 pips from entry, then TP will also be 20 pips.
• RR = 2.00 means TP = 2 x SL. If SL is 20 pips, then TP will be 40 pips.
• RR = 0.5 menas TP = 0.5 x SL. If SL is 20 pips, then TP will be 10 pips.
• Risk selector button - choose type of risk you want. You can select percentage (%), or account currency (USD, EUR, etc...). 
• % - risk based on a percentage of account balance. If set to 1%, the next trade will risk 1% of the account balance.
• USD - risk based on account currency. If set to 100, the next trade will risk 100 USD. Risk Reducer automatically shows your account currency here.
• Both RR and Risk selection values are persistent. That means they will always show last used setting, even after platform restart.
• RR and Risk can be changed by clicking on a + / - buttons (default step is 0.25 for RR and %, and 100 for currency). You can also enter the numbers manually.
• Trade preview area - shows all important info about the order you are about to place. It is divided in 3 columns: trade, SL and TP. This area is dynamic, so it shows any change you make instantly.
• Trade column shows: position size and RR coefficient
• SL column shows: SL distance in pips, Loss amount in account currency, Loss in percentage of account balance, SL price
• TP column shows: TP distance in pips, Profit amount in account currency, Profit in percentage of account balance, TP price
• SELL/BUY buttons - choose order direction
• After clicking on a button, you enter into "Select SL" mode where you can click on a chart to place SL. Every chart click will place the SL on the current mouse position. You can also click and drag SL line on chart. If you place SL on the wrong side of the entry line, you will be notified in the header. After correctly placing SL, OK button will become enabled. Here, you can also change risk settings and see the changes in the preview area.
• Click on Cancel button to cancel the trade
• Click on OK button to confirm the trade

  

To open a new trade:

1. Choose risk mode:
• %
• account currency
2. Enter risk value
3. Turn RR On or Off
4. Click BUY or SELL
5. In Stop Loss selection mode: Click the chart background to place Stop Loss
6. Review the trade in preview area
7. Click OK to confirm market order
8. Click CANCEL to cancel the order

Stop Loss

• selected directly on the chart
• can be moved by chart clicks 
• can be dragged after placement
• must be valid for the selected BUY or SELL direction

Stats tab

The Stats tab is read-only. The purpose of the Stats is to show some important trading metrics. They are calculated based on selected period.

Available periods:

• Day - from start of day up until now
• Week - from start of week up until now
• Month - from start of month up until now

Limits tab

Coming soon in Version 3.0

Setting account trading limits based on stats.