Quantitative Risk Management Workbook: Metrics, Sizing, and Portfolio Controls

Understanding risk metrics conceptually and being able to apply them to a real strategy are different skills. A trader who can define Value at Risk but cannot calculate it from a return series, or who knows what position sizing means but freezes when applying it to a strategy with correlated positions, is not yet protected by that knowledge. This workbook course closes that gap through structured exercises, templates, and worked examples. By the end of this course you will be able to calculate historical VaR from a return series, build a drawdown analysis table from a trade log, apply fixed fractional and half-Kelly position sizing to a strategy with defined win rate and payoff ratio, construct a basic portfolio risk report covering exposure concentration, correlation, and drawdown, and design a simple set of risk limits appropriate for a systematic trading strategy. What you will learn: - Calculating historical VaR from a monthly return series: step-by-step with worked numerical examples - Visualising drawdown: building an underwater equity curve table from cumulative returns - Correlation and its effect on portfolio risk: a worked example comparing correlated vs. uncorrelated strategy combinations - Position sizing calculation worksheet: fixed fractional sizing with varying win rate, average win, and average loss inputs - Kelly criterion calculator template: full Kelly vs. fractional Kelly and the case for conservative scaling - Stress testing a strategy: applying historical shock scenarios to estimate tail exposure - Portfolio risk report template: exposure by asset class, strategy, and correlation cluster - Risk limit framework: daily loss limit, maximum drawdown limit, and position concentration cap Each section delivers a worked numerical example followed by a blank worksheet you can populate with your own strategy data. Case studies walk through a systematic equity strategy and a mean-reversion futures strategy to show how the same metrics behave differently across strategy types. Reflection prompts ask you to interpret outputs and identify what action each metric suggests. This course is designed for aspiring quantitative traders and systematic traders who want hands-on practice with risk measurement tools. Suitable for learners who have a basic familiarity with trading concepts and are new to quantitative risk methods. This course is informational and educational and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all individuals.