How I'd start trading today: write the rules before the first trade.

Most people start the way the apps want them to: open an account, look at a chart, press buy.

Beginners don't lose money because they pick bad stocks. They lose because nothing sits between the idea and the order: no plan, no limit, no record. When a trade goes wrong, they can't say what they meant to do.

This is how I'd start again. It's opinionated, deliberately slow, and the thinking Krino is built on.

What I believe about starting out

• Discipline is a process, not a personality trait. Professionals rely on limits decided in advance and checked every time, not on willpower.
• Your first job is to survive, not to win. The first year is tuition. Keep it cheap enough that you're still around to use the lessons.
• The best trade is often the one you didn't take. Most apps help you trade more. A beginner usually needs to trade less.
• Your rules beat anyone's tips. A rule you wrote and understand is one you can follow, test and fix. A signal you were given is none of those.
• The record is the edge. You can't improve what you didn't write down before the outcome was known.

Seven rules I'd write before the first trade

1. Only trade money you can afford to lose. Not rent, not savings you'll need this year. If losing it would change your life, it's too much to start with.
2. Pick a slow timeframe. Daily and weekly charts give you time to think, fit around a job, and keep you out of races with machines.
3. Cap the risk per trade. 1% of the account is a common starting point. That's the most a single trade is allowed to cost if the stop is hit.
4. Cap the total risk. A limit across all open trades, say 5%. When it's used up, you wait. No exceptions on a "really good" setup.
5. Set the stop before the entry, and size from it. The stop is where your idea is wrong. The distance to it decides how many shares you can buy, not how confident you feel.
6. Only take trades worth the risk. A minimum reward:risk of 2 means you aim to make at least twice what you'd lose. It lets you be wrong more often than right and still come out ahead.
7. Write the plan down before the order, and log the fill after. Entry, stop, target, size, one line on why. Then compare what you did with what you wrote.

The one calculation every beginner should know

Rules 3 and 5 together tell you exactly how big a position can be. Here's a small first account:

If the stop is hit, you lose €50, not €500. Move the stop further away and the share count drops with it. That's the whole point: the risk stays fixed, the size adjusts.

Try it with your numbers

How many shares does your first rule allow?

Your rule

Account (€) Max risk %

The trade

Entry Stop

Max loss€50

Shares10

Position€1,000

Of account20%

Let Krino do this on every trade → Opens the live demo with sample trades. No signup.

My first 90 days, if I started again

The goal of the first 90 days is not profit. It's a process you follow even on the days you don't feel like it.

Mistakes I'd avoid

• Starting with signals or tips. You learn nothing when it works and can't fix it when it doesn't. Start with your own simple rules.
• Day trading first. The fastest timeframe gives you the least time to think and the most chances to break a rule.
• Sizing by feel. "It feels right" is how one trade turns into a third of the account. Size from the stop.
• Moving the stop. A stop you move when the price gets close isn't a stop. If the idea changed, write a new plan.
• Adding money after a loss. The urge to win it back is exactly when the rules matter most.
• Not writing anything down. Without a record made before the outcome, every review is hindsight.

Why I built Krino around this

Everything above can be done with a notebook and a calculator. I tried that. The hard part was never the maths; it was doing it every time, especially after a loss or a big win.

So Krino does the boring part before every trade. You write your limits once. For any symbol it works out the entry, stop, target and share count your rules produce, blocks the plan when your risk budget is used up, asks you to confirm before you act, and keeps the plan so you can compare it with what you did. It never connects to your broker. You still place every trade yourself.

▶ Watch · 1:43

Getting started with Krino: your first trade plan

From opening the demo to a logged trade: write your rules, ask them about a trade, read the plan, hit the risk gate, confirm the checklist and record the fill.

• Your rules, onceCapital, max risk per trade and a minimum reward:risk, set in your profile.
• A plan per tradeEntry 612, stop 595, 8 shares, R:R 2.24, computed from those limits.
• The risk gateA symbol over its risk budget is blocked until the budget resets.
• On the recordThe checklist, the fill and the journal, linked to the plan.

Screens from Krino's demo mode with sample data.

Quick start checklist

• Decide how much money you can afford to lose. Start with less than that.
• Trade daily or weekly charts, not minutes.
• Set a max risk per trade (for example 1%) and a max total risk (for example 5%).
• Place the stop first, then size the position from it.
• Skip trades below your minimum reward:risk.
• Write the plan before the order. Log the fill after.
• Review monthly and fix one habit at a time.

The question that actually matters

Not "what should I buy?" That answer changes every week.

The better question: "How much am I allowed to lose, and what will I do when I'm wrong?"

Answer that in writing before your first trade and you've done what most beginners never do.

This article is the author's personal opinion and general education, not investment advice. Krino executes rules and risk limits you configure. It is not personalized investment advice. Trading involves risk of loss. You are solely responsible for your own trading decisions. The figures in the examples are illustrative; the video shows Krino's demo mode with sample data.

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