How to plan entries, stops and exits in crypto

Chapter 7 left each shortlisted coin with two blanks: what you would act on, and the price at which the idea is wrong. To plan entries, stops and exits, fill them in a fixed order and write the result as an if-then sentence that can fail. Levels and rules are written before the trigger: the band, the invalidation, the target, the buffer, the lapse window. Prices and sizes are calculated when the trigger candle prints, and they face the same checks as any other plan. A trigger can fire and the plan can still say pass.

The entry is where plans go wrong, because it moves everything after it. For arithmetic only, assume an entry at 100, a stop at 96 and a target at 108: risk 4, reward 8, about 1:2. Wait for a confirming close at 103 with the stop still at 96 and it is 7 against 5, about 1:0.7. The idea is unchanged and the plan is a different one. When price runs away from the trigger, the stop does not move to keep the entry affordable. The plan lapses, or you write a new one the setup page allows.

Under a plan's rules, two things end a trade. The invalidation is a close beyond the level on the decision chart, taken by hand. The stop order, a buffer beyond that level, is the backstop for a move too fast to wait for a close. Whichever comes first ends it. Chapter 7's cost test comes back here: it used a stop implied by your map and an assumed buffer, and the real stop order replaces it. A finished plan can still be a pass, because costs can fail, a cap can bind, or the room to the target can fail the test you wrote first. The limit: a complete plan is a checkable decision, not a good one.

Line	What you write	Test it must pass
Coin and setup	The coin from your shortlist, the one setup page it follows, and the date.	Is the setup named for the coin's label, or does the market the setup names match your map?
If	The trigger as an event on a closed decision-chart candle, the order it sends, and when the plan lapses, in candles.	Could another person find the trigger on the chart, and does the plan say when it expires?
Invalidation	The decision-chart close that ends the idea, as a price, and the level it sits beyond.	Is there a reason on the chart other than the size it allows?
Stop order	A reduce-only stop-market a buffer beyond the invalidation, with the buffer named as a default or your choice.	Is the stop distance measured from the entry to this order, buffer included, and not to the level?
Size and checks	The entry you would get, cost per unit, and units = planned loss in cash / (entry to stop order + cost per unit), rounded down. The planned loss with costs is R for this plan. Then the checks in your sheet's order: pause, ceiling, costs within one fifth, group cap, total cap. Liquidation waits for chapter 9's ticket.	Is the planned loss written in cash, and does each check pass or end as "pass:" with the reason?
Exits	The target at the next real level, the share closed there, the stop on the rest, any early exit, and your room test: reward after costs against risk after costs.	Did you write the room test before the entry price existed, and does the plan pass it at the real entry?
Reasons to pass	The conditions that cancel or refuse the plan: the setup page's that apply, plus yours.	Is each one a yes/no you can answer from the chart, the sheet or the log?

Objectives

This step supports the conditional plan, invalidation and risk budget steps for each shortlisted coin: a plan you could place, or a written pass. It comes here because a shortlist gives a reason but no trigger, stop or size. It uses your chapter 7 shortlist, the invalidation closes on your chapter 5 maps, the eligible setups from chapter 6, and the sizing formula, caps, fees and funding from your chapter 2 and 3 sheets.

• Write a trigger as a closed-candle event with a lapse window.
• Place the stop order a buffer beyond the invalidation and measure the distance to it.
• Size from that distance with costs and run the sheet's checks in order.
• Write the target, the share closed and the stop on the rest before the trigger candle prints.
• Write the conditions that make the plan pass.

The 1 to 2% planned loss and the 3x ceiling are house constraints, and 3x applies to the leverage setting and to all open position values over equity. The 4% total and the grouping rule are this manual's choices, and the group cap reuses the per-trade limit. A buffer of 0.5 x ATR(14) is an assumed example: a wider one is reached by fewer wicks and shrinks the position, a tighter one does the reverse. The room test, the share closed at a target and the lapse windows are yours, because the setup pages ask for a test you wrote before the trade and this manual sets no minimum ratio. Less, or no position, is always allowed. A gap, slippage, fees or funding can make the realised loss larger than the planned loss.

Hypothetical walkthrough: two shortlisted coins, one plan and one pass

Hypothetical walkthrough. Invented prices and an invented outcome, chosen to teach the decision. Not a recorded trade, and not evidence of how often this setup works.

Assume the reader from chapter 7: a $5,000 account, a 1% planned loss ($50), a 2x ceiling, a $50 group cap and a $200 total, nothing open, a daily decision chart, a weekly context chart, and contracts that trade in whole units. Their sheet gives a taker fee of 0.06% a fill, 0.20% of price for spread and slippage across both fills, and funding of 0.01% per 8 hours over a two-day hold, 0.06% for a long if the rate stays put. Costs are 0.38% of price. Their room test, written first: reward after costs at least equal to risk after costs. Chapter 7 shortlisted coins A and C and passed B as the same group as A.

Plan A, breakout continuation long.

• If: a daily close above the band of 100 to 102 (three touches), then within 10 candles a candle that trades into the band and closes back above 102 with no close below 100, the hold. Then a buy stop-market just above the hold candle's high, cancelled after 3 candles.
• Invalidation: a daily close below 100.
• Stop order: a reduce-only stop-market at 98.5, the band's lower edge less a buffer of 1.5, which is 0.5 x ATR(14) with ATR(14) at 3.0.
• Size: assume the hold candle's high is 105.8, so the order is at 106 and is assumed to fill there. Costs are about 0.40 a unit. Units are 50 / (7.5 + 0.40), 6.3, so 6. The position is worth 636, 0.13 of equity. The planned loss with costs is 6 x 7.9 = 47.4, which is R.
• Checks: no pause is active, and 0.13 is within 2x. Costs of 2.4 are 5% of 47.4. The stop is 7.1% of price against a floor of 4 x 0.38% = 1.52%, where chapter 7's screen had an implied 6.5%, so the rerun clears. The group has $50 of room and nothing is open, and the total has $200. Liquidation waits for chapter 9.
• Exits: the next resistance at 120, marked before entry, with all six units closing there as a reduce-only limit. Reward after costs is 14 - 0.40 = 13.6 a unit against 7.9, about 1:1.7, so the room test passes. A single exit leaves nothing running once 120 fills. A split, or the trend ride, needs its share and a rule for the rest written the same way.
• Passes if: no hold arrives within 10 candles; a close below 100 comes first; the hold candle's low reaches 98.5; the room test or the cost line fails at the real prices; a cap would bind; or the weekly chart stops reading advance.

Plan C, oversold bounce long.

• If: RSI(14) has closed under 30 within the last 10 candles, then a daily close above L, the last lower high at 110, with the fall's lowest low at 100. Then a limit buy at that close, assumed 111, cancelled after 3 candles.
• Invalidation: a daily close below 100. Stop order: 97.9, with a buffer of 2.1 (0.5 x ATR(14) of 4.2).
• Size: the distance is 13.1. Funding is negative, so a long receives it and the reader leaves it out. Costs are about 0.36 a unit, so units are 50 / 13.46, 3.7, so 3, worth 333, with a planned loss with costs of 40.4. Costs are 3% of it, so the cost line holds and the room test decides.
• Exits: the first resistance, where the fall gathered speed, at 124. Reward after costs is 13 - 0.36 = 12.64 against 13.46, about 1:0.94. The room test fails.

One repair would pass it: a stop at 103 gives a distance of 8, 5 units and about 1:1.5. The chart gives no reason for 103. The fall's low is 100, and the oversold bounce page puts the stop below it because a first bounce can return to the low while the idea is alive. A tighter stop is a different plan with its own invalidation, and the oversold bounce page allows no stop above the fall's low. A stop at another level needs a setup page that names it, written before its trigger candle prints. The reader writes "pass: room, 1:0.94 after costs" and logs it.

The outcome was chosen to show a plan written out in full, a cost rerun that held, and a coin that cleared chapter 7 and still earned no order.

Reading list

1. Trade setups: the nine setups, risk first. Read the one your coin's label allows in full: Before you enter, Conditions, Reasons to pass, Entry and Exits.
2. Breakout continuation long: the setup behind plan A, with its hold and buy stop.
3. Oversold bounce long: the setup behind plan C, with its confirmation close and a stop below the fall's low.
4. Where to place a stop loss: the level, the close rule and the order, and why size uses the order price.
5. Position sizing: the sum with a cost allowance, and why a wide stop means a small position.
6. Risk to reward: how entry timing and costs change the ratio, and why the ratio is not the chance.
7. Taking profit: targets at real levels, the share closed, three plans for the stop on the rest.
8. Chandelier Exit trend ride: optional, for a plan with no fixed target.

Read the setup page first, since it supplies the trigger, the invalidation and the reasons to pass, then the stop and sizing pages, then the exits. Write the levels and rules before the trigger candle prints and rerun the numbers when it does.

This chapter cannot settle whether a plan has any edge, since this manual cites no test of any setup, trigger, target or ratio. It cannot settle whether the exchange will take the plan as written either. Plan A assumes its entry fills at the trigger, and the liquidation estimate, the unit the size field takes and the fill you get are read on the form, not on the page. The question to carry forward: does the order you can place match the plan you wrote? Placing orders puts one plan on a form and checks the entry assumption and the liquidation estimate this chapter left open.

You should now be able to

• Write a trigger as an event on a closed candle, with a lapse window.
• Place a stop order a buffer beyond the invalidation and measure the stop distance to it.
• Size a position from that distance with costs, and say which check ends it as a pass.
• Write a target at a real level and a rule for the rest, and read the reward after costs against your own room test.
• Say why moving a stop or a target to improve a ratio changes the plan, not the idea.
• Produce: your written if-then plan for each shortlisted coin (trigger, invalidation, size from your risk budget, exits, reasons to pass), using the table at the top of this page.