Target Price Calculator

This target price calculator adds your chosen percentage gain to the entry price for a long position, bought to sell later. The gain is before costs. Its Final Amount card shows the value of the whole entered position, rather than a separate per-share target. It does not forecast a stock price, include costs or offer a short-trade selector. Enter quantity explicitly: blank or zero inputs can use preset values.

A desired return is the input to the calculation

The form asks what price change would produce a percentage gain you choose. It has no earnings estimate, company valuation, chart history or time horizon. A larger Desired Profit % simply moves the calculated exit value further above the same entry.

There is no estimate of how likely that price is to occur or when it might occur. The arithmetic is unchanged if you describe the position as intraday or long term because the form receives no holding-period input. It also cannot decide whether an entry or a desired return is reasonable.

For this page, gross gain means the price difference before costs. Net gain means what remains after the relevant costs. The Desired Profit % field calculates the gross price-change percentage; it does not solve for a take-home return.

What target price means: trader versus analyst

People use "target price" for two different things. An analyst's target price is a forecast of where a share might trade, usually over about 12 months and sometimes 18 months, built from a valuation method. A trader's target price is the exit level chosen before entering, often from a percentage gain, a chart level or a multiple of the risk taken.

This calculator answers the second meaning only. You choose a percentage, and it shows the price and the position value that percentage would give. It does not value a company, so it cannot tell you what an analyst's target would be.

The inputs are entry, percentage and quantity

• Entry/Buy Price: the price paid per share or matching underlying unit. Use the actual average for the quantity you are analysing.
• Desired Profit %: the assumed positive percentage rise from that entry price. It is a chosen scenario, not a predicted return.
• Quantity (Optional): the number of shares or matching units. With a positive quantity, the form uses that number directly rather than multiplying it by a contract lot size.

Keep the entry price and quantity on the same basis. A share price with a share count is consistent. An index level with a number of option lots is not an option-profit calculation. If using an option-premium illustration, all price inputs and the desired percentage would need to concern that premium itself.

Despite the optional quantity label, an empty or zero quantity does not mean that the tool will show no position. It can fall back to an internal index-lot quantity without exposing an instrument selector. Enter a positive quantity explicitly and check the resulting total. Blank or zero entry prices and desired percentages can also become positive preset values. Recheck every field rather than treating those outputs as a zero-return scenario.

Worked example: the target price and the whole-position value

These example inputs are fictional: Entry/Buy Price ₹200, Desired Profit 5% and Quantity 50 shares. There are no assumed dividends or transaction costs in the tool's calculation.

• Entry position value: ₹200 × 50 = ₹10,000.
• Gross gain per share: ₹200 × 5 ÷ 100 = ₹10.
• Calculated per-share target: ₹200 + ₹10 = ₹210.
• Final Amount: ₹210 × 50 = ₹10,500.
• Total Gain: (₹210 − ₹200) × 50 = ₹500.
• Multiplier: ₹10,500 ÷ ₹10,000 = 1.05.
• Effective Rate: ₹10 ÷ ₹200 × 100 = 5%.

The displayed ₹10,500 is a position total. It would be a serious unit error to use it as the price per share for this example. Dividing that total by the 50-share quantity recovers the per-share target of ₹210 before any display-rounding difference.

If Quantity is explicitly set to 1 for the same example, Final Amount becomes ₹210 and Total Gain becomes ₹10. That is a per-unit illustration because the quantity is a single unit. It does not represent the total proceeds of the original shareholding.

Target price formula: three common methods

• Return-based (what this tool does): target = entry price × (1 + desired gain ÷ 100). For a short position that profits from a fall, target = entry price × (1 − desired fall ÷ 100). The tool itself handles the long case only.
• P/E-based: target = expected EPS (earnings per share) × a P/E (price to earnings) multiple you consider reasonable. The EPS is usually a forecast for the next 12 months, and the multiple often comes from the company's own history or from similar companies.
• DCF-based: forecast the cash the company will produce, discount it back to today at a chosen rate, add a terminal value, and divide by the share count. The result is a fair value estimate. Our intrinsic value calculator shows the steps.

The first method needs one assumption, the percentage. The second needs two, EPS and the multiple. The third needs many. More assumptions give more room for a confident-looking number that is wrong, so write each one down.

Each Final Amount is the target per share times the quantity of 10. The Multiplier card shows 1.05, 1.1 and 1.2 for these rows.

Target price example using the P/E method

Suppose an investor expects a company to earn ₹60 per share over the next 12 months and decides that a P/E of 18 is reasonable. The target is ₹60 × 18 = ₹1,080. If the share trades at ₹900 today, the gap is (₹1,080 − ₹900) ÷ ₹900 × 100 = 20%. All three numbers are made up for this example. Change the EPS or the multiple and the target moves by the same proportion, which is why analysts' targets for one company can differ widely.

To use that 20% in this calculator, enter ₹900 as the entry price and 20 as Desired Profit %. It will show ₹1,080 per share. The tool only does that arithmetic. It cannot judge whether the EPS or the multiple is sensible.

Setting a trade target from risk and reward

A common way to set a target is from the stop. Take the distance from entry to stop (the risk, also called 1R), then place the target at a multiple of it. With an entry of ₹200 and a stop of ₹196, the risk is ₹4 per share. A 2R target is ₹200 + 2 × ₹4 = ₹208. A 3R target is ₹212.

The loss if the stop is hit is ₹4 × 25 = ₹100 in this example. To test the same targets in this calculator, divide the reward by the entry: ₹8 ÷ ₹200 is 4%, so enter 4 for the 2R case. The risk-reward calculator works from your stop directly.

Another technical method is the measured move. If a share trades in a range from ₹100 to ₹120 and then breaks above ₹120, some traders add the range height of ₹20 to the breakout level for a first target of ₹140. This is a rule of thumb from chart reading, not a forecast, and many breakouts fail. Fibonacci extensions are a similar idea, using ratios of an earlier swing.

Target price versus fair value

Fair value (or intrinsic value) is an estimate of what the business is worth. A target price is where you expect or hope the price to be at some point. A share can be worth more than its price for years, and it can also reach a trader's target without any change in what the business is worth. Analysts update targets after results or news, so an old target is stale. Treat any published target as one opinion with its own assumptions, and do not read it as a promise.

A target is also separate from a stop-loss. The stop is the price at which your idea is wrong. Decide both before you enter, and record both in your journal so you can later compare the plan with what happened.

How each result changes when you change quantity

For the same entry and desired percentage, changing quantity scales the position value and gross gain. It leaves the underlying percentage rise unchanged. Multiplier also stays the same because both the entry value and exit value scale together.

Total Gain is displayed as a number but represents the gross amount gained across the entered quantity. It is different from a percentage or a price move per share. Final Amount includes the original entry value plus that gain.

Effective Rate is the rise relative to entry, not an annualised return and not a return on trading margin. Multiplier is the ratio of gross final value to gross entry value. Neither output accounts for how the position was financed.

The value and gain cards round to whole rupees. The multiplier and effective-rate calculations also round their displays. When checking a small position or a fractional-price scenario, retain the original entry and percentage for your independent arithmetic rather than reverse-calculating solely from rounded totals.

What happens after costs?

Suppose the fictional example above has total round-trip costs of ₹40. This is an assumed example amount, not a broker tariff. A ₹500 gross gain would leave ₹500 − ₹40 = ₹460, or 4.6% of the example's ₹10,000 entry value.

To retain the example's ₹500 gain after that fixed ₹40 cost, the gross gain would need to be ₹540. Spread across 50 shares, that is ₹10.8 per share, giving an exit price of ₹210.8. This is separate illustrative arithmetic: the form has no cost field and does not calculate that adjusted target.

Actual costs can change with the transaction value, product and broker. The fixed-cost example should therefore not be treated as a complete charges calculation. Use the F&O trading cost calculator only for a matching F&O transaction, with its own stated assumptions.

Short trades, risk and execution need separate inputs

A short trade involves selling first and buying back later; it profits from a fall in the traded price. This form provides no direction control and uses a positive long-position percentage rise. It cannot calculate the corresponding short exit simply from the existing fields.

There is also no stop-loss field. A desired profit percentage alone cannot establish the possible loss, a reward-to-risk ratio or an account-risk amount. Use the risk-reward calculator when you have a separate chosen stop, and keep its price and quantity units consistent.

A calculated target does not place an order. Investor.gov explains that a market order does not guarantee an execution price, while a limit order specifies a price or better. These are general order definitions; the actual order types and execution terms available to you must be checked with your broker.

Recording a target in your journal also does not establish that the market traded enough quantity at that price for your order to complete. Use the prices and quantities actually executed when reviewing the outcome.

Keep the planned exit and the realised result distinct

The Fibonacci retracement calculator calculates price references from chosen swing endpoints. This page instead starts from a desired percentage. Neither calculation supplies a reason that the market must reach the result.

When a position is partly sold, record the quantity and price for each sale. Do not treat the original whole-position Final Amount as realised cash proceeds after only part has exited. Recalculate the remaining quantity from the appropriate entry basis.

OneTradeJournal lets you record a target, stop, strategy, actual trade details and notes by hand. A useful review preserves the target you originally planned, any later change and the eventual result after estimated charges. That record is separate from the percentage scenario shown here.

Target price calculator questions

Sources

• Investor.gov: order-price and execution definitions, checked 16 October 2026.