AR-PLN-001·PL-01 — The session bench. Stylised brand illustration of the laboratory, not a photograph of a physical facility. The charts and figures inside the plate are simulated.

Tools · AR-TL-001 · Operator instrument

Write the limits down
before the first trade.

Every trader intends to stop at a certain loss. Very few write the number down first, and almost nobody records the moment they decided to carry on past it. This is a plain record-keeping instrument for a single session: you state the limits in advance, log what you actually did, and the tool holds you to the arithmetic of your own plan.

STATUS WORKING TOOL DATA YOUR ENTRIES ONLY STORAGE THIS BROWSER

Scope

This is a planning and record-keeping instrument. It provides no advice, no signals, no forecasts and no assessment of whether a trade is a good idea. It does arithmetic on the limits you set and reports whether your own entries stayed inside them. Amounts are shown with the neutral currency sign ¤; your account is denominated in whatever currency your broker holds it in, and this tool neither converts nor assumes.

01Session setupAR-TL-001·01

The plan is the part
written in advance.

Two caps, a per-trade size and a trade count. Everything the rest of this page does is derived from these five numbers, so state them before the session opens rather than during it.

Session plan

Not started

All amounts in your account currency · figures update as you type

Written before the session, this is the only honest benchmark for the reflections you write after it.

02Command centreAR-TL-001·02

Where the session stands,
in eight numbers.

The utilisation bar is the one to watch. It reports how much of the binding cap the session has already spent, and it changes state well before it runs out.

Starting balance—As entered in the plan
Session P&L—Sum of logged results
Risk used—Risk committed, not realised loss
Risk remaining—Against the binding cap
Trades taken—Including trades still open
Trades remaining—Against the planned maximum
Win rate—Of decided trades only
Session statusReadyNo session started

Daily risk utilisation

Normal · 0%
0–49 Normal 50–74 Elevated 75–99 Caution 100+ Trading locked

03Trade loggerAR-TL-001·03

Log the trade you took,
not the one you meant to take.

Entry, stop and risk amount together imply a position size and an R distance. If the stop sits on the wrong side of the entry for the direction you chose, the form says so before the trade is recorded.

New trade

Trade 1

Pair and direction required · prices optional · R accepts negative values

Logged trades

0 trades
Trades logged in the current session
# Pair Direction Risk R Result Outcome Plan Time Actions

The table scrolls sideways on a narrow screen rather than shrinking to illegibility.

04Performance reviewAR-TL-001·04

What the session actually did,
as opposed to how it felt.

A single session is far too small a sample to say anything about an edge. It is large enough to say something about adherence, and adherence is the part you control.

Total trades0Logged this session
Wins0Outcome recorded as win
Losses0Outcome recorded as loss
Breakeven0Closed at or near entry
Win rate—Wins ÷ decided trades
Total R—Sum of decided results
Average R—Per decided trade
Cumulative R—Ending value of Figure 2
Gross profit—Sum of positive results
Gross loss—Sum of negative results
Net P&L—Gross profit less gross loss
Profit factor—Undefined without a loss
Average winner—Mean positive result
Average loser—Mean negative result
Largest win—Single best result
Plan adherence—Yes counts one, partially a half

Largest loss — · open trades are excluded from every ratio until an outcome is recorded.

Figure 1 · Trade result, R per trade Your records

Signed R multiple for each decided trade, in the order logged. Units: R.

Figure 2 · Cumulative R Your records

Running total of R across the session, starting at zero. Units: R.

Override log

Every trade taken past a limit is recorded here with the reason you gave at the time. Nothing in this log can be edited, because the value of the record is that it was written before the outcome was known.

Overrides recorded during the current session
Recorded Type Trade Stated reason

05Session completionAR-TL-001·05

Close the session
while you still remember it.

The best and worst trades are suggested from the log by result. Both fields stay editable, because the trade that cost the most money is not always the one that went most wrong.

Session close

06Session historyAR-TL-001·06

A run of sessions says
more than any one of them.

Adherence across twenty sessions is a measurement. Adherence in one session is a mood. The export controls exist so this record can leave the browser and be analysed properly.

No saved sessions

Saved sessions held in this browser
Date Session Pairs Net P&L Total R Win rate Adherence Actions

How the limits interact, and which one binds

You set two ceilings on the day: a percentage of the account and a fixed amount. They are rarely the same number, and when they disagree the tighter of the two binds. This is not a preference. A limit that can be satisfied by pointing at the looser of two rules is not a limit; it is a pair of suggestions.

The percentage cap moves with the account. It shrinks after a losing run, which is the behaviour you want, because the run that hurt the account also proved something about the conditions. The fixed amount does not move. It is useful precisely because it does not: it is the number below which a bad day stays survivable regardless of what the percentage arithmetic says. Most operators find the fixed cap binds after a drawdown and the percentage cap binds after a good month. The tool states which is active at any moment and computes everything — remaining risk, permitted losses, utilisation — against that one.

The trade count is a third constraint and it is not redundant. Risk per trade multiplied by the maximum trade count can easily come to less than the daily cap, in which case the count binds first and the cap is never reached. That is a legitimate design: it limits exposure to your own decision quality late in a session, when it is usually worst.

Why overrides are recorded rather than prevented

This page has no authority over your broker. If it refused outright, the trade would still be taken — it would simply be taken outside the record, and the log would then describe a session that did not happen. A record with a hole in it is worse than no record, because it reads as clean. The override exists so that the discipline the tool actually enforces is the discipline of writing things down.
Breaching a limit requires stopping, reading what the breach is, and writing a sentence explaining it. That takes perhaps twenty seconds, and those twenty seconds sit between an impulse and its execution. A reason typed in that state is also unusually informative when you read it back a month later, next to the outcome.
One override in forty sessions is a judgement call. Six in ten sessions is not a discipline problem to be solved by willpower — it is evidence that the limit was set at the wrong level, or that the strategy needs more trades than the plan permits. Either way the fix is to the plan, and the log is the only thing that will tell you which.

What this instrument cannot do

It does not read a market, a price feed or a broker account. Every figure on this page is arithmetic on numbers you typed, and if you type them wrong the arithmetic will be wrong with complete confidence. It cannot verify that a trade was taken, that a price was real, or that the risk amount you entered matches the position you actually held.

It offers no view on whether a setup is worth taking, no signals and no advice. Nothing here is a recommendation, and no output should be read as a projection of future results. One session is not a sample; even a hundred sessions of a discretionary process tell you more about your consistency than about an edge. For the question of whether a framework has an edge at all, the research instruments elsewhere in the facility are the relevant ones, and they are explicit about their own limits.

Storage is local and therefore fragile. A cleared browser cache, a private window, a different device or a different browser each mean a different — usually empty — record. Export anything you intend to keep. Trading involves substantial risk, and a planning tool reduces none of it; it only makes the size of the risk visible before it is taken.