Protected quickstart
Complete and save one protected review
Follow the exact public sample, email verification, analysis, risk-plan, and one-save path—with privacy, access, and no-order boundaries made explicit.
Open the user guideLumiere Learn
Make the risk decision before the order decision.
A source-backed library for active traders who want a repeatable pre-trade review: define the setup, decide what invalidates it, size from a dollar-risk budget, and practice the workflow in IBKR Paper TWS.
The short version
A pre-trade review should produce a falsifiable plan, not a prediction.
Before an order ticket, write down the market context, the setup, the evidence that would prove the idea wrong, the maximum planned dollar loss, the order behavior you expect, and the conditions that mean no trade. If one of those fields is missing, the review is incomplete.
Choose by decision
Start with the question blocking the review.
You do not need to read the library in publication order. Choose the decision that is still vague, then return to the full checklist before treating the review as complete.
DecisionStart hereComplete when
Build the whole reviewTen-step checklist or the private browser worksheetEvery required field is observable and a failed gate can still produce no trade.
Separate evidence from interpretationFive-layer evidence standardSource facts, calculations, system interpretations, user risk rules, and the decision record remain inspectably distinct.
Define what makes the idea wrongInvalidation versus stop-loss executionThesis failure is separate from the risk budget, alert, stop trigger, and eventual fill.
Calculate a size ceilingDollar-risk sizingThe whole-share result is reduced by any lower capital, liquidity, portfolio, data, or broker constraint.
Practice with IBKR Paper TWSConnection setup and the pre-order workflowThe written review comes before broker previews, and a connection does not imply order authority.
Decide what a tool can be trusted to doTool-role comparison and AI-tool due diligenceDiscovery, analysis, decision, execution, permissions, evidence, and limitations are named separately.
Interactive template
Private pre-trade review worksheet
Compare the risk-budget and capital ceilings with a visible paper example, then check the fixed decision fields entirely in the browser—without sending the values to Lumiere.
Open the free templateWorkflow
The risk-first pre-trade review checklist
Ten decisions, a continue-or-stop gate, and transparent paper arithmetic that can still produce “no trade”—without pretending a checklist removes market risk.
Use the checklistEvidence and provenance
The pre-trade evidence standard
Separate provider observations, reproducible calculations, system interpretations, user-defined risk rules, and the final decision—while preserving failed data lanes.
Inspect the five layersDecision quality
Trade invalidation versus a stop-loss order
Define the observable condition that makes a setup wrong, then separate it from the risk budget, price alert, stop trigger, and price actually received.
Compare invalidation and executionRisk math
Position sizing by dollar risk
Calculate a maximum theoretical share count from entry, invalidation, and risk budget—then reduce it for real-world constraints.
See the formulaIBKR practice
IBKR Paper TWS setup and troubleshooting
Confirm the simulated account, connect Lumiere in read-only mode, and diagnose socket, port, upgrade, connectivity, data, and source-handoff failures.
Open the setup guideIBKR workflow
Review risk before opening the IBKR order ticket
Write the source, setup, invalidation, dollar-risk size, execution limits, and no-trade condition before using Paper TWS margin and portfolio-risk previews.
Follow the eight-step reviewComparison
Pre-trade review versus a trading journal
Compare the before, decision, and after stages, then see how a frozen no-trade record reduces hindsight without treating P/L as process quality.
Compare the workflowsTool stack
Pre-trade review versus scanners, charts, and broker tools
Separate discovery, visual analysis, and broker previews from the written risk decision that should happen before an order.
Compare the tool stackOriginal methodology
Pre-trade review completeness benchmark
Read the ten fixed fields, privacy exclusions, minimum sample, account cap, suppression rule, and repeatability gate before any beta result is published.
Inspect the methodologyTrust and verification
AI trading-tool red flags and due diligence
Test guarantees, win-rate claims, source provenance, model evidence, total costs, broker permissions, order authority, and revocation before connecting money or an account.
Use the due-diligence checklistOne synthetic path through the library
A finished calculation can still stop at no trade.
Assume a hypothetical long-share review—not a current security or quote—with a 50.00 USD entry condition, 49.20 USD thesis invalidation, 80.00 USD dollar-risk budget, and 4,000.00 USD capital ceiling.
Risk per share50.00 − 49.20 = 0.80
Risk-budget ceiling80.00 ÷ 0.80 = 100 shares
Capital ceilingfloor(4,000.00 ÷ 50.00) = 80 shares
Lower ceiling80 shares; 64.00 planned price risk
Failed freshness gateNo trade
The sequence matters: use the invalidation guide before the sizing formula, apply the lower constraints in the full checklist, and preserve the result in the decision record. If the source becomes stale, the arithmetic does not rescue the review. No trade is the complete output.
This is illustrative stock arithmetic, not a recommendation, suitability decision, current market observation, performance record, order instruction, fill assumption, or maximum-loss guarantee.
Editorial standard
What these guides will—and will not—claim.
Guides name primary sources, show the date reviewed, distinguish market structure from execution mechanics, and state material limitations. Examples are illustrative, not recommendations. For current execution and risk context, the library cites regulator and broker documentation such as Investor.gov on stop and stop-limit orders, FINRA Rule 2270, and IBKR's pre-order margin guide, reviewed August 4, 2026. Lumiere is not affiliated with or endorsed by Interactive Brokers.
We do not publish profit promises, “winning setup” claims, invented benchmarks, or performance statistics without a defined methodology and auditable sample.
See the workflow