Risk management

Size before entry

Choose the loss in account currency first. Then derive the position. Doing it the other way — buying a round number of shares and then noticing the risk — is how accounts get bent around one idea. Stops are orders, not shields. Gaps and halts can fill you worse than the stop price, or not at all.

The risks that sizing does not fix

A portfolio of correlated trades is one trade. Currency, custody and the chance that the broker or fund suspends withdrawals sit outside the stop. Write them down separately. An emergency cash reserve is a risk tool even though it looks like inactivity.

Leverage and frequency

Leverage raises the chance that a normal day becomes a permanent loss of capital. Frequent trading raises the chance that costs do the same more slowly. Neither is forbidden by arithmetic. Both deserve a higher bar than an unleveraged fund contribution.