Position Coaching: Review an Open Trade Against Its Plan

An entry plan can disappear once the position is open. P&L becomes the loudest number on the screen, while the initial stop, risk unit, and partial-exit plan sit somewhere else.

A position-management checklist brings those inputs back together. It should describe the current rule state, not issue an unquestionable trade instruction.

The purpose of coaching is to reflect the earlier plan back to the trader, not to replace judgment or control the broker.

Separate fixed inputs from current configuration

• Fixed position inputs: direction, entry, original shares, and initial planned stop.
• Frozen targets: selected structural T1, T2, or T3 levels captured with the position when available.
• Mutable position state: current recorded stop and partial closes.
• Current configuration: scale-out tiers loaded from the user's current Constitution when coaching is requested.

Keep initial risk fixed for historical R calculations. If the stop is moved later, changing the denominator would make the position's earlier and later states difficult to compare.

Read current R as context

For a stock position, current R compares the directional move from entry with the absolute distance from entry to the initial stop. A long at $50 with a $47.50 initial stop has $2.50 of planned risk per share. At $55, the simplified open state is +2R.

That number does not say whether to sell. It says where current price sits relative to one risk unit. Data latency, gaps, slippage, and partial exits can make realized results differ from the displayed state.

Compare scale-out state with recorded closes

TradeRegimen scale-out tiers pair a percentage of the original position with a structural target slot and a positive-R fallback. The current suggested configuration assigns 50% to frozen T1 with a +2R fallback and 50% to frozen T2 with a +3R fallback. During onboarding, users can change the percentage allocation between these two rows, and the percentages must total 100%.

Coaching evaluates the tiers stored in the current Constitution against any frozen structural targets on the position. The tier configuration is not snapshotted with each position, so a later stored-configuration change would also change the open-position display. When a trigger is reached, the view compares cumulative allocation with recorded close quantities. It cannot know about an unrecorded broker fill, and it does not submit the sale.

Keep stop state and stop orders separate

The coaching calculation can compare current price with the recorded stop and produce a rule-derived trailing-stop observation. That observation is not a working order. A broker stop has separate trigger, fill, and non-execution risks.

If the broker position, current stop, or partial closes are stale, review and reconcile them before acting on the coaching state.

Use extension as one observation

TradeRegimen can display ATR-based and multi-anchor extension context when enough daily-bar history is available. Extension describes distance from selected moving-average anchors relative to recent range. It is not a forecast that price must reverse, and a missing value is not a neutral reading.

Dedicated ATR-extension push alerts are not currently shipped. Do not confuse extension context in the coaching surface with the supported scheduled notification set.

Understand the alert cadence

Eligible Pro positions are evaluated on a scheduled weekday scan. Supported in-app events include stop-zone, configured scale-out, structural-target, and selected R-milestone alerts. Push delivery depends on notification settings and token availability. This is not tick-by-tick monitoring.

• A quote or bar may be delayed or unavailable.
• A notification can be disabled, delayed, or undelivered.
• An unrecorded broker action can make the app state stale.
• The user remains responsible for verifying prices and orders.

A hypothetical review

Assume a fictional 100-share long position reaches a configured +2R tier that allocates 50% of the original position. No close has been recorded. The coaching view can show that the threshold is reached and that 50 shares remain outstanding for that tier.

The trader then checks the broker, confirms whether any order or fill already exists, reviews current data, and decides what to do. If a 50-share close is later recorded, the tier can be shown as completed. None of those states guarantees an execution price or investment outcome.

A practical open-position checklist

1. Confirm the broker position and recorded quantity agree.
2. Verify the initial stop and current stop are accurate.
3. Read current R relative to the initial plan.
4. Compare reached scale-out tiers with recorded closes.
5. Check data freshness and any extension context.
6. Make and document the brokerage decision separately.

Use the R-multiple guide for the denominator and the partial-exit planning guide for the broader decision problem.

Sources and limits

• FINRA's stop-order overview explains why a trigger does not guarantee an execution price and why a stop-limit order may not execute.
• Coaching calculations, supported alert events, cadence, scale-out behavior, and legal boundaries were reviewed against the current implementation on September 14, 2026. Examples are hypothetical and educational.