A prop firm risk check that runs on your own stop, your own instrument and your own chart timeframe. Every figure that depends on your numbers moves when you change a number.
Download this kitOne file. The tool works offline. Yours to keep.
Half of all NQ five-minute candles in the day session travel at least 28 points high to low, whatever the idea behind the trade was. A stop that is small against that range can be reached by ordinary movement before the idea is proven wrong. You're letting ordinary price movement decide the trade before your idea does.
Measured from real NQ/ES 1-minute bars: median high-low range per candle, regular trading hours only (09:30 to 16:00 New York). 41,813 five-minute NQ candles (Jun 2024 to Sep 2026) & 40,087 ES candles (Jul 2024 to Jul 2026). Not a live feed.
What was measured. The high minus the low of each candle, and the median of those differences. The median, not the average: half of all candles travel at least this far and half travel less. The average for the same NQ sample is 35.23 points, pulled up by the widest days.
The sample. NQ from 23 June 2024 to 18 September 2026, and ES from 14 July 2024 to 31 July 2026. Regular trading hours only, 09:30 to 16:00 America/New_York, so nothing overnight is included. That leaves 41,813 five-minute NQ candles across 548 sessions and 40,087 ES candles across 523.
How it was built. Tick data recorded here, turned into one-minute bars, and those bars resampled into five-minute candles. 33,003 timestamps arrived more than once; 32,996 of those copies were identical and were removed, and the 7 that disagreed all fell outside the session.
How stable it is. Counting every session in the window gives 28.00 points. An audited cut ending a day earlier gives 41,796 candles and the same 28.00. Restricting to sessions with at least 350 of their 390 minutes present gives 28.50, and to sessions with every minute present, 28.50. The figure moves by half a point across all four, which is why this book uses 28 rather than a decimal that would imply more precision than the sample carries.
What this file does not record. How the front month contract was rolled between expiries, and whether the series was back-adjusted across those rolls. Both affect long-horizon studies more than a per-candle range, but they are not written down here, so they are not claimed.
The stop never left the shaded band. This isn't a rare event. Half of all day-session candles on this timeframe are at least this tall. A stop that was never measured against the median range can get taken by ordinary price movement, again and again.
The move can still arrive in the direction you expected, after ordinary movement has already reached a tight stop.
That's why this mistake feels so unfair. Price does exactly what you expected, just after your stop is gone.
“I only want to risk $200”, so the stop goes wherever that math lands. Risk decides the stop.
The market does not know you want to risk $200. It only knows how far it normally travels. Your dollar limit is invisible to it.
Risk does not decide where the stop belongs. Risk decides how big your position can be, once the market has told you where the stop belongs.
This calculator compares the room you give your trade with the median high-low range of a day-session candle on the timeframe you trade.
“Median range” = the median high-low range of one candle during regular trading hours (09:30 to 16:00 New York), measured from real NQ/ES 1-minute price history, not a live feed. Half of all day-session candles are bigger than this, half are smaller. The all-hours average is a lower number because it includes the quiet overnight session; this book uses the day-session median because that is when you trade. Your own market’s current volatility may differ. This is a principle check, not a trade signal.
You're not trading a $2,000 account.
You're trading against a scoreboard that can end it in one five-minute stretch: a daily loss limit that doesn't care how right you were, a consistency rule that punishes your best day, a trailing drawdown that follows you even while you're winning.
Most traders don't blow the account because they can't read a chart. They blow it because nobody told them the rules were built to catch instinct, not reward it, and by the time they figure that out alone, the account is already gone.
Let the market decide the room.
Let your risk decide the size.
Stop distance and position size are one decision, not two.
6 risk traps, 6 interactive tools, and your own numbers in every one, so you can see exactly where your sizing breaks before the market shows you.
Elite Intelligence DeskTrading Labeidtradinglab.comadmin at eidtradinglab dot comThe full risk disclosure →Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. You can lose more than you expect, and past results, yours or anyone’s, do not guarantee future results.
This material is for education only. It is not investment, financial or trading advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument or to take any specific trade. EID Trading Lab does not provide personalized advice.
The tools use the numbers you enter and the simplified assumptions stated next to each one. Their results are illustrations, not predictions. Any historical market figures shown describe past market behavior only. Prop firm rules differ by firm and change over time, so always check your own contract.
You are solely responsible for your own trading decisions and their results.
