Platform
Four tools for the questions that come before the order
The kaiser signal workspace turns depth, cost and risk into working instruments: a depth ladder explorer, a risk ruler, a round-trip cost estimator and a recovery chart. Try each one below.
What the workspace does
A deliberately plain set of instruments
Most trading software competes by showing more. kaiser signal competes by showing the few things that decide whether an idea is worth acting on, and showing them clearly. Each instrument answers one question, uses one formula and prints that formula next to its result.
You use them in whatever order suits you. A typical pass starts with depth ("how large can I trade before the price moves against me?"), moves to cost ("what must the price do for me to break even?"), then to risk ("how large should the position be if my exit is hit?") and finishes with perspective ("what would a larger loss demand of me?").
The instruments are independent of any particular market. You supply prices and a per-unit value; they supply the arithmetic. That keeps them usable across whichever instruments you follow, and it keeps them honest, because they can only reflect what you tell them.
Instrument 01
The depth ladder explorer
Customer need: you want to know what size does to your price. What it does: walks an order through an example book level by level and reports the average fill, the best price, the price impact and how much of your order was filled.
Practical benefit: it shows why a quoted price is only the start of the story. A 6-unit buy fills at the best offer; a 20-unit buy reaches three levels and costs more per unit. The same logic applies to any real book you look at.
The depth ladder explorer
See what happens to your average price when an order is larger than the quantity waiting at the best price. The book below is a fixed, invented example.
Average fill price
—
- Best price
- —
- Price impact
- —
- Filled
- —
| Bid size | Price | Offer size |
|---|
A market order consumes the best price first, then the next. This explorer shows arithmetic on an invented book, not a forecast, not a quote and not an order.
Limitation: the book is invented and static. Real books change continuously, can contain hidden or iceberg quantities and may not fill orders as simply as a straight sweep.
Instrument 02
The round-trip cost estimator
Customer need: you want to know how much of a move is spent before you earn anything. What it does: adds spread cost, commission both ways and any other charges, then converts the total into the price move required to break even.
Practical benefit: put the break-even move beside your target. If a target is only a little larger, the idea has little room to be wrong, and you can see that before you act.
The round-trip cost estimator
Costs decide how far a price must travel before an idea breaks even. Enter figures from your own provider's published schedule.
In account currency.
Financing, platform or data charges, in account currency.
Total cost of the round trip
—
- Spread cost
- —
- Commission (both ways)
- —
- Other charges
- —
- Break-even move
- —
Break-even move = total cost ÷ (units × value per unit), in price units. It assumes you cross the spread once and pay commission on entry and exit. Your provider's real charges may differ.
Limitation: it uses the charges you enter. It cannot know your provider's real schedule, and it treats the spread as crossed once.
Instrument 03
The risk ruler
Customer need: you want position size to follow from a decision about risk, not the other way round. What it does: takes your balance, the share you are willing to risk, your entry and your exit, and returns the largest position that keeps the loss at your exit inside that limit. If you enter a target it also shows reward to risk.
Practical benefit: the further away your exit, the smaller the position. Seeing that relationship makes it harder to widen an exit and quietly keep the size.
The risk ruler
Turn a risk limit into a position size before you act. Educational only: enter your own figures; the ruler uses only what you type.
In your account currency.
Check the contract specification of your instrument. For a share it is 1.
Maximum position size
—
- Amount at risk
- —
- Distance to exit
- —
- Loss if the exit is hit
- —
- Reward to risk
- —
Units = amount at risk ÷ (distance to exit × value per unit). Spread, commission, financing and slippage are excluded, and a price can move past your exit before an order fills. Position size rounds down.
Limitation: this is arithmetic, not advice, and it excludes costs, gaps and slippage. It does not know whether your exit is sensible, only what it implies for size.
Instrument 04
The recovery chart
Customer need: you want to understand the real weight of a drawdown. What it does: converts a loss from your starting balance into the gain needed on the reduced balance to return to even.
Practical benefit: it explains in one picture why protecting capital matters, and why the risk ruler starts from a limit.
The recovery chart
Losses and the gains needed to undo them are not symmetrical. Move the slider to see the gain that returns you to your starting balance.
Gain needed to get back to even
42.9%
A 30% loss needs a 42.9% gain on the reduced balance.
Formula: gain = 100 × loss ÷ (100 − loss), valid for any loss below 100%. Educational only. Trading costs are not included. The chart illustrates arithmetic; it does not suggest recovery is likely and does not recommend a strategy.
Illustrative, not live data, not a prediction.
Access and requirements
What you need to use it
The tools run in a modern web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. They respond to touch and keyboard, work with a screen reader and use no plug-ins. There is nothing to install and no account to create to try them.
Anything beyond these tools, such as an account or trading access, is provided by the executing broker, IG Markets Limited, not by this website. How that works is explained on the How it works page and the Costs & access page.
Boundaries worth knowing
- The tools do not provide live prices, quotes or order routing
- They do not predict, recommend or alert
- They do not connect to an account or broker
- Results depend entirely on the figures you enter
These boundaries are a feature as much as a limit: what the tools do not do, they cannot get wrong on your behalf.
Questions
About the instruments
Do the tools connect to my broker or my account?
No. Every tool runs from figures you enter or from a clearly labelled example, inside your browser. They do not read from, or write to, any trading account.
Where does the example order book come from?
It is invented for illustration and never changes. Its purpose is to show how an order consumes depth level by level, not to represent any real market on any real day.
What is the "value of a 1.00 price move per 1 unit"?
It converts a price change into money for your instrument. For a share, one unit is one share and the value is 1. For a contract with a multiplier, it is the multiplier. Your provider's contract specification states it; if you are unsure, check before relying on a result.
Why does the risk ruler round down?
Because a position larger than the calculated size would put more than your chosen amount at risk. Rounding down keeps the loss at your exit at or below the limit you set.
Can the real loss be bigger than the risk ruler shows?
Yes. Prices can gap past an exit, orders can fill at worse prices than expected and costs are excluded from the calculation. The ruler shows the loss if your exit fills exactly where you entered it.
Are my figures stored?
The tools calculate in your browser as you type. In this version nothing you enter into them is transmitted or saved.
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