Work out how many lots to trade so that a stop loss costs exactly the amount you are willing to lose. Prices update live, and every cross pair, gold and oil is covered in eight account currencies.
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How to use the position size calculator
- Choose your account currency and the instrument you want to trade.
- Enter your account balance and how much you want to risk, either as a percentage of the balance or as a fixed amount.
- Enter the distance to your stop loss in pips.
The result is the largest position that loses no more than your chosen risk if the stop is hit. It is rounded down to the nearest 0.01 lot, the smallest size most brokers accept, and the calculator also shows the exact risk at that rounded size.
The position sizing formula
Position size (lots) = amount at risk ÷ (stop loss in pips × pip value per lot)
Example: a USD account of $10,000 risking 1% ($100) on EUR/USD with a 50-pip stop. One pip on a standard lot of EUR/USD is worth $10, so the position size is 100 ÷ (50 × 10) = 0.20 lots. If the quote currency of the pair is not your account currency, the pip value is converted at the live exchange rate, which is why the result for pairs like EUR/JPY or GBP/CHF changes slightly as prices move.
How much should you risk per trade?
Most professional guidelines put the risk on a single trade at 0.5% to 2% of the account. At 1% a run of ten losing trades costs less than 10% of the account, which is recoverable; at 5% the same losing streak costs around 40%. Fixed-fraction sizing like this is the core of money management and the simplest way to keep drawdowns under control.
The stop loss should come from the chart, not from the account size: place the stop where the trade idea is proven wrong, then let the position size absorb the distance. A wide stop simply means a smaller position (see placing stop losses and take profits).
FAQ
What is a standard lot? One standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency. A mini lot is 0.10 (10,000 units) and a micro lot is 0.01 (1,000 units). For gold, one lot is usually 100 ounces; for WTI crude oil, 1,000 barrels. You can change the contract size under Contract specification if your broker uses a different one.
Does leverage change the position size? No. Leverage only decides how much margin the position ties up. Your risk is set by the position size and the stop distance. More on this in how to use forex leverage safely.
Where do the prices come from? Live quotes from a retail broker feed, the same prices shown on our live forex charts. Cross rates are calculated from the major pairs.