YAL Academy
Risk, plan and practice
The largest module and the one that is free precisely because it is the one that matters. Sizing, limits, stops, style, plan, testing, journal and the behavioural failure modes that undo all of it.
Trading involves risk. You could lose more than your deposit.
The arc
AdvancedModule 9 of 10
20 lessons, about 177 min
- AssumesMacro and the calendar
- UnlocksStaying safe and your rights
The lessons
What this module covers
Starts from the only variable a trader fully controls, size, and derives everything from it: size from stop distance, size from volatility, then aggregate limits across positions and across time. Then exits, because a size decision without an exit is incomplete. Then the container, style and plan and system, then the two disciplines that keep the container honest, testing and journalling. Ends on the behavioural failures that break every rule the module has just built.
Lesson 01
What risk management actually is
A set of size and exit decisions made before a position exists, and the reason it is not optional.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 7 min
Lesson 02
What risk per trade describes
The fixed fraction convention, where it comes from, and why this page does not put forward a figure.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 10 min
Lesson 03
How position size follows from stop distance
The calculation that turns a risk amount and a stop distance into a contract size, worked across asset classes.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 10 min
Lesson 04
Volatility adjusted position sizing
Using a measured range rather than a fixed distance, and what changes when volatility changes.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 05
What portfolio heat is
Total risk committed across everything open at once, and why per trade limits alone do not bound it.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 7 min
Lesson 06
Daily and weekly loss limits
Pre committed stopping points, why they are set before the day starts, and what they are actually defending against.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 7 min
Lesson 07
What reward to risk describes
The ratio between a planned exit distance and a planned stop distance, and the two things it does not tell you.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 08
What expectancy describes
An arithmetic definition only, taught so a reader can recognise the term and its limits, not so it can be claimed.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 7 min
Lesson 09
Where a stop sits on the chart
Placing an exit relative to structure rather than relative to a preferred loss amount.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 13 min
Lesson 10
Volatility based stop placement
Distance derived from measured range rather than from a chart feature, and when each approach breaks.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 11 min
Lesson 11
Why stops get hit
The honest anti-lesson: clustering, spread at the level, thin books and the difference between a bad stop and bad luck.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 12
Standard stops and guaranteed stops
What each one promises, what each one costs, and why the difference is the whole point.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 7 min
Lesson 13
How scaling out of a position works
Closing part of a position, what it does to remaining risk, and what it does to cost.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 14
Adding to a losing position, as a risk topic
What averaging down does to close out distance, taught failure case first and recommended by nobody here.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 15
What the trading styles demand
Scalping, day, swing and position trading described by their time, cost and attention requirements, with no style endorsed.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 9 min
Lesson 16
What goes in a trading plan
The components a written plan contains, and why the writing itself is the mechanism.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 10 min
Lesson 17
How a trading system is tested
Defining rules precisely enough to be testable, then testing them on data and then on demo.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 9 min
Lesson 18
The limits of testing on history
Overfitting, survivorship, execution assumptions and the reasons a good historical result proves little.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 19
How a trading journal is kept
What is recorded before a position, what is recorded after, and what the record is actually for.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 8 min
Lesson 20
The behavioural failure modes
Overtrading, revenge trading, loss aversion and confirmation bias, and the pre commitments that address each.
- Level
- Advanced
- Read time
- 14 min
Get started
Open your account in four steps.
A clear path from sign-up to your first trade, in four steps.
No depositNo documents
01/ 04step 1 of 4
Register
A few details to get started.
No deposit to open
02/ 04step 2 of 4
Verify
Confirm your identity, securely.
ID and proof of address
03/ 04step 3 of 4
Fund
Add money by bank transfer or card.
From $0
04/ 04step 4 of 4
Trade
Go live on the platform you already know.
MetaTrader 5
