# How to Set Your Risk Per Trade in Trader Journal

> Trader Journal's risk settings let you track whether you are following your risk management rules on every trade. Here is how to configure and use them.

**Tags:** risk-management, risk-per-trade, position-sizing, app-features

**URL:** https://traderjournal.app/app-features/how-to-set-risk-per-trade-in-trader-journal

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# How to Set Your Risk Per Trade in Trader Journal

Risk management is the foundation of long-term trading profitability. Trader Journal includes tools to set your intended risk per trade and compare it against your actual trade sizes, revealing whether you follow your own rules in practice.

## Setting Your Default Risk Parameters

In Trader Journal, go to **Account Settings** and find the Risk Management section. Here you can configure:

**Risk per trade (% of account):** Your standard risk target. Common values are 1% (conservative), 2% (moderate), or 0.5% (very conservative for large accounts).

**Maximum daily loss limit:** The total drawdown percentage at which you should stop trading for the day. Many risk management frameworks recommend 3-6%.

**Maximum drawdown alert:** A threshold that triggers a notification when your account draws down to a specified percentage from its peak.

These settings are used to:
1. Calculate your target position size for any given trade
2. Flag trades where your actual lot size exceeded your target risk
3. Show your risk consistency score in the Reports section

## The Position Size Calculator

When you open the trade entry screen in Trader Journal (either manually or from an open position), the Risk Calculator shows:

- Account balance (synced from your broker)
- Your configured risk % per trade
- Entry price and stop loss distance (in pips)
- **Recommended lot size** based on the above inputs

This gives you the correct lot size before entering the trade in MT4. You can calculate on your phone while looking at your MT4 chart.

**Example:** Account balance $5,000, risk 1% ($50 per trade), stop loss 20 pips on EURUSD with a $10 pip value per lot. Recommended lot size = $50 ÷ (20 × $10) = 0.25 lots.

## Tracking Risk Compliance Over Time

After you have been trading for several weeks, the Reports section shows:

**Risk compliance rate:** The percentage of trades where your actual risk (calculated from lot size and stop loss) was within 20% of your target risk setting. A high compliance rate (above 80%) indicates you follow your risk rules consistently.

**Average actual risk per trade:** Your real average risk, which may differ from your target. Many traders intend to risk 1% but average 1.8% because they sometimes double their size on "high conviction" setups.

**Oversized trades:** Trades where you risked significantly more than your target. These are tagged automatically and visible in the Trades list with a risk warning indicator.

## Why Risk Tracking Matters

Most traders who blow accounts do not have a bad strategy. They have good strategies that they abandon during drawdowns by increasing position size to recover losses (revenge trading) or by adding size on "sure thing" setups.

Your risk data in Trader Journal will reveal one of several patterns:

- **Consistent risk:** Your lot sizes are proportional to your account and stop loss. This is the goal.
- **Risk creep:** Your average risk per trade has increased over time. This often happens silently as you become more comfortable and stop applying discipline.
- **Emotional size increases:** Your largest trades correlate with your worst trades. This is the revenge trading pattern — clearly visible in the data.

Seeing these patterns in your own data — not as a principle but as your actual behaviour — is what drives real change.

## Setting Different Risk Levels for Different Setups

If you use a tag system (e.g., "A+ setup," "B setup"), you can configure different risk targets per tag in the advanced settings. A+ setups might target 1.5% while B setups target 0.5%.

This lets you track whether your higher-risk trades on A+ setups are actually outperforming proportionally — verifying whether your conviction is well-calibrated.