How do you calculate the number of units you should buy when making a trade risking 1

Beginner Questions
1

percent

i understand they reccommend risking 1% of your account on every single trade.

How do you calculate the volume you should buy then?

2

I personally trade one unit per dollar I have in my account. It’s fairly conservative, but I generally have numerous trades open at one time.

To answer your question more conventionally, you would look at how many pips you are risking and make sure it equates to 1%.

3

I use the BabyPips position size calculator.

Position Size Calculator: Free Online Forex Position Sizing Calculator

If you want to learn how to do the calculations yourself, here’s the lesson in the BabyPips School on how to do that.

Calculating Position Sizes | Position Sizing | Learn Forex Trading

4

I am using the same toold

5

Hi all,

First of all, thanks for a superb site!

I have a real newbie questions here regarding the BabyPips position size calculator.

I have entered the following info;

Account Currency: GBP
Account Balance: 1000
Risk Percentage: 3
Stop Loss in Pips: 20
Currency Pair: EUR/USD
Price for GBP / USD: 1.33280

Amount at Risk: 30 GBP
Position Size: 19992 units
Standard Lots: 0
Mini Lots: 1
Micro Lots: 19

Does that mean my lot size should be 0.119? However, isn’t that trading a mini lot, and on the page about “leverage the killer” it says you should not consider trading a mini lot unless you had $10 k in your account?

I’m a bit confused :15:

6

Your lot size would actually be 0.19 on a standard account. The value of one lot is relative to your account type. For example, on a mini account one lot would be worth 10,000 and 0.19 lot would be 1900 (10000x0.19). And it says that you should have at least 10,000 if you’re planning to trade a mini account (not lots).

7

Ah, now I’m even more confused. My account is a MICRO 2 (from Alpari), but when I make a trade I have the option to choose volumes from 1 to 0.01 (and in fact I can type in any number inbetween). On the above example, why does it give a figure of 1 for mini lots, and also a figure of 19 for micro lots? Sorry if I am sounding dumb…

8

Beats me man. I don’t know why they don’t include decimals in the calculator. 19992 units would be 1.99 volume on a mini account and 19.99 volume on a micro account. Volumes = lot. 0.19 lot = 0.19 volume.