Account & costs
Required margin for a position, and the effective leverage it puts on the account.
Required margin for a position, and the effective leverage it puts on the account. 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 →Margin is the deposit the broker holds, not the risk. A position can be well within your margin and far outside your risk budget.
One standard lot of EURUSD at 1.1650, on 30:1 leverage:
The margin is $3,883. The risk, on a 40-pip stop, is $400. These are unrelated numbers and confusing them is how accounts get over-leveraged.
Same division, different contract size — a crypto position is quoted in coins rather than lots, so notional is simply units times price.
The figure crypto venues make prominent is the liquidation price, not the margin. On isolated margin at 10x, roughly a 10% adverse move liquidates the position — before funding and fees, which move it closer.
Margin is still not risk. $3,100 of margin on a position you would exit at a $400 loss is a $400 risk; conflating the two is how leveraged crypto accounts are sized by what the exchange permits rather than by what a loss costs.
No. Margin is what the broker holds to open the position; risk is what you lose if the stop is hit. They can differ by an order of magnitude.
The broker closes positions when equity falls below a maintenance level, usually 50% of margin. Sizing by risk rather than by margin keeps you well clear of it.
Equity minus the margin currently held against open positions. It is what you have available to open more, and it falls as open positions move against you even though the margin requirement has not changed.
A calculator answers one question and raises the next. These are the ones this figure feeds into.
Exposure relative to equity, and why an affordable margin can still be reckless risk.
Convert a position size into standard, mini and micro lots for your broker.
Turn an account balance, a risk percentage and a stop distance into a size in lots, shares or contracts.
Margin Calculator · rounding shown to the precision displayed