Don't understand position sizing

Beginner Questions
1

I Don’t understand the position calculator.
Lets say I have an account of 1000$.
I want to risk 2% per trade. I have stop loss at 10pips. So the position size is 20 000 units/2mini lots, and I risk 20$.

How am I supposed to be able to trade with lots that high with only 1000$ account? The amount of margin is 3,3% so the required margin will be 660$.
I could only have one position open, and isn’t it very risky to have a margin level of only 150%. I would get a margin call pretty quickly.

What am I missing?

2

I’m thinking mico lots…

What broker are you using?

3

I have demo accounts on IG and XTB. It really doesn’t matter which broker I use since I live in EU, so my max leverage is 1:30 regardless.

Is this position calculator on babypips just useless for eu citizens?

4

Why do you say that? Because no leverage setting? No, EU citizens can definitely use it.

5

But how? What value does it have then?

6

Like how can you ever risk 2% per position with low leverage? It just isn’t possible without risk of margin call

7

Actually, you understand it quite well. You used it, with inputs selected by you, and you successfully got the result determined by your inputs.

If you don’t like the answer given by the Calculator, that’s not the Calculator’s fault.

In other words, how are you supposed to be able to trade with a position that is grossly over-leveraged? You’ve actually answered your own question, don’t you think?

If you enter a $20,000 position in a $1,000 account, you are using actual leverage of 20:1. That’s too high, given the 30:1 maximum allowable leverage dictated by your regulator.

It isn’t the job of the Position Size Calculator to advise you on the prudent use of leverage. The job of the Position Size Calculator is to compute the position size which will match your chosen stop-loss (in pips) to the maximum dollar-risk you have specified.

That’s a consequence of being over-leveraged.

You are not likely to get a margin call – unless, of course, you try to enter another position while this one is still open.

If you enter the one position you have described, MARGIN plus LOSS (assuming you are stopped out) will not exceed your account balance.

8

I don’t think you need a position size of 20,000 units/2mini lots . You what to risk $20 (2%) with a 10 pip SL on a $1000 account right? If the maket move 10pips against you at 0.01 lot you lose $1.0. How many lots does it take to lose $20 if the market move 10pips against you? Doing a simple cross multiplication you get 0.2lots. So for your quoted specification, you need a position size of 0.2lots

9

The volume of trade mostly determines your pip value and risk measurement. If you think you are risking too much, reduce your lot size and leverage, it is a simple as that. Use the calculator till you get the desired result.