Account & costs
Exposure relative to equity, and why an affordable margin can still be reckless risk.
Exposure relative to equity, and why an affordable margin can still be reckless risk. The page states the equation, the units it expects and the rounding it applies, so the result can be reproduced by hand.
A calculator gives you a number. This one feeds the next: account to risk, risk to position size, position size to the trade, and the trade to expectancy, drawdown and risk of ruin.
See the performance tools →The leverage that matters is the one you are using, not the one the broker offers. A 500:1 account running one micro lot is levered under 1:1.
A $25,000 account holding 2 standard lots of EURUSD at 1.1650:
At 9.3:1, a 1% move against the position is 9.3% of the account. That is the number to watch, not the broker’s maximum.
The formula is unchanged — total notional divided by account equity. What changes is that crypto venues quote leverage per position, so a "10x" badge on one trade says nothing about the account.
That position shows as 10x on the exchange if it was opened with $3,100 of isolated margin, and as 1.24:1 on the account. The second number is the one that describes what a move does to you.
Perpetual futures also charge funding every few hours rather than a daily swap, so a leveraged position held for weeks pays a cost the leverage figure does not show. The swap calculator covers the equivalent arithmetic.
The question is better asked as risk per trade. Effective leverage under about 10:1 is common for discretionary traders; what actually protects you is the stop and the position size.
Only if you use it. Broker leverage sets the maximum; your position size sets the actual.
Account leverage is the maximum the broker permits. Effective leverage is what you are actually using — total notional divided by equity — and it is the only one that describes your exposure.
A calculator answers one question and raises the next. These are the ones this figure feeds into.
Required margin for a position, and the effective leverage it puts on the account.
The maximum you should lose on one trade, before anything else about the trade is decided.
Peak-to-trough decline, and the gain required to climb back out of it.
Leverage Calculator · rounding shown to the precision displayed