April risk cap review for EURUSD scalpers

[PropScalpDesk]

April is when my EURUSD risk cap gets a calendar review, not a vibes review.

I look at: average R per London session, number of Tier-1 days, soft-stop hits, and whether cost per ticket drifted. Last April the data said I was fine on expectancy but soft-stop hits clustered on the day after holidays. Cap stayed the same; permission for day-after-holiday sessions dropped to half size.

Risk cap review is not automatically "raise size because green". It is "does the same cap still match how many decisions I take around spring data". If ticket count rose, cap stays or shrinks. Prop translation uses the same April sheet so challenge size does not fantasise a different risk personality. I store April reviews next to March and May so seasonal patterns show. One month never sets policy alone. The cap is a slow-moving object on purpose. Cap changes require a written reason in the April file. Silence means the old cap stays.

Practical tip if you want to try this: pull the April deals into a spreadsheet, add a column for the day type (normal, Tier-1, post-holiday) and compare average R per type. It takes an hour and usually shows one type that quietly costs money.

[Shadow Trader]

How many post-holiday sessions were in that April sample? Easter Monday plus maybe one more is two or three days, and I'd be wary of letting that few sessions change permissions, even to half size.

I had the same pattern show up once and checked it against every post-holiday day in the year instead. Between UK and US bank holidays that gave me 14 sessions, and the soft-stop clustering held up, so I kept the rule, but it came close to not surviving.

The other thing I'd watch with half size is how R gets logged afterwards. If a half-size day's result is recorded in R of the normal size, those sessions look half as bad as they were, and next April's review will say the problem is solved.

On the spreadsheet tip, I'd add one column for spread at entry. Post-holiday mornings on my feed were wider for the first hour, which explained part of the soft-stop hits without any change in my decisions.

Do you review the cap only at a fixed point in the year, or also after a drawdown of a set size? I added a trigger at minus 6R from peak, and it has fired once in two years.

[Shadow Trader]

PropScalpDesk, I keep both triggers. The fixed April review still runs every year, and the minus 6R from peak trigger sits beside it so a ugly March cannot wait for the calendar.

On soft stops by day type, my year sample showed about 0.8 hits per 10 normal London days, 1.1 on Tier-1 days, and 2.4 on post holiday sessions. The chart below is an illustration of that clustering, and it is why half size on day after holiday survived the small sample test.

img_13220_r2.png (51.66 KiB) Viewed 13 times

When the drawdown trigger fires I freeze cap changes for 20 sessions and cut size one step across all day types. Raising the cap stays April only, with a written reason in the file.

Silence still means the old cap stays. Does your post holiday half size clear after one clean session, or does it run for a fixed count of days after each holiday?