Hello, TradeSmith Family,
Tuesday was a good day for the markets. The Dow was up 512 points (2.1%). The S&P 500 performed well and was also up 2.1%. We also saw the Nasdaq close 2.7% higher. It all stemmed from hopes rising over a potential Federal Reserve rate cut. That good news helped the trade war tensions take a back seat during the day’s trading.
With the markets looking up, you might be considering entering some new trades. To make risk your ally, you’ll need to properly position size. To do that, the updated TradeStops Position Size Calculator can help you
Finding the Position Size Calculator
You’ll find the Position Size Calculator on the new TradeStops Dashboard; it’s in the action carousel on top.
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If your screen is minimized, you might need to scroll between the options to find the Position Size Calculator. You can scroll through the options by clicking those small arrows to the left and right of the carousel. Just click the Calculate Position Size button to be brought to the Position Size Calculator.
Getting Started
Getting started with the Position Size Calculator is super simple. First, just enter the ticker symbol you’re interested in.
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In the drop-down box that appears, select the stock you want to position size. Please note that the updated Position Size Calculator does not support options.
Once you’ve selected your ticker, some basic information on the stock will appear along with three position-sizing options. Let’s take a look at that basic info first.
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At the top of your screen, you will see the ticker and the latest close. You can change what ticker you’re viewing by clicking in the box of the current ticker and simply searching for a new ticker.
To the right of this, you’ll see the stock’s Stock State Indicator (SSI) and Volatility Quotient (VQ) information. You can click those boxes to see more information about the SSI and VQ for your selected stock.
This is all basic information that you can usually find when researching any stock in TradeStops via the stock’s position card. But below this information is where the fun begins for the newly enhanced Position Size Calculator.
The Three Results
Previously, you could only get results based on how much you were willing to risk or invest in a position. Now, we’ve made that functionality even better — and we’ve added two new options.
In the first option, located on the left of your screen, you can position size based on investment amount or amount you’re willing to risk. This is the same functionality that has always been available to you in TradeStops.
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In the top input bar, you can type how much money you’d like to invest. You don’t need to type the dollar sign or commas. Make sure to click Apply when you make any changes.
You can also input the amount of risk you’d like to take on this position by clicking on the blue pencil icon. Here, you can either change the amount of money you want to risk on this trade or you can change the percentage of risk allocated to the position. Note that the default risk percentage is the position’s Volatility Quotient (VQ). For any of these options, the number of shares will be calculated for you once you click Apply.
The next option is new and allows you to position size based on a risk percentage of your entire portfolio.
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In the drop-down bar, you’d select the portfolio you want to add this new position to. By default, the system will have you risk 1% of the entire portfolio value. You can edit that value by clicking the small, blue pencil icon.
The final option is another new addition to the position size calculator. It will help you to take equal risk in your portfolio by balancing the new position against the other positions in the selected portfolio.
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Just like with the risk percentage option, you’d first select the portfolio that you’d like to balance against. One thing to keep in mind: If you haven’t balanced your entire portfolio, it wouldn’t make sense to use this option because the other positions wouldn’t be balanced. But, that’s why we included the Run Risk Rebalancer button at the bottom of that option. If you click that, it’ll bring you to the Risk Rebalancer, and from there, you can balance the portfolio to work with this new position size.
If you’ve recently balanced your portfolio, though, you wouldn’t need to balance your portfolio again to add the new position.
Bulletin Board
Wow! We know that was a lot to learn today. Here at TradeSmith, we’re committed to advancing your education in everything from the latest investing news to using our programs to make you a better investor.
Speaking of that, we have a treat for you. Marina Stroud, our Product Education Specialist, has set up some trainings sessions for our customers. She will host these sessions over the coming weeks, and you can sign up for the first three starting today!
TradeStops Essentials: TradeStops Orientation 101
June 10 at 1 p.m. Eastern
In this training webinar, Marina will answer, “What is TradeStops and how can it help me?” She will also review the site navigation and how to adjust your program settings.
TradeStops Essentials: Create Your Portfolios
June 12 at 1 p.m. Eastern
In this training webinar, Marina will show you how to import your brokerage account(s), set up a manual portfolio, and upload a .CSV file. She will also take you through your Newsletter Center to track your various publishers
TradeStops Essentials: Maintain Broker Synchronization
June 14 at 1 p.m. Eastern
In this training webinar, Marina will show you how to troubleshoot the most common synchronization issues.
We hope you’ll join us for these training webinars. Marina loves working with all of you and answering your questions. If you’d like to submit any questions for these upcoming webinars, please do so! You can email us at [email protected].
Until Next Time
We hope that you’re enjoying all the updates to the TradeStops program. We know that there is a lot to learn, but we’re here for you. Over the past few weeks, we’ve provided you a general overview, covered the stock analyzer, and showed you the new method for adding alerts.
We’ll continue to cover more of the new feature enhancements over the next couple of weeks. We want to ensure you get the most out of your TradeStops experience!
Talk to you next week,
TradeSmith Customer Success Team
