Assuming your account is denominated in USD, then for the GBP/USD trade you described, 1 pip is worth $1.
Let’s say that your broker charges a 3-pip spread on GBP/USD, and you want your stop-loss to be 30 pips away from your entry price [B]after[/B] you have covered the spread. This means that a stopped-out trade will cost you 33 pips, which equals $33.
You could do 28 consecutive GBP/USD trades, and take a 33-pip loss on each one, before wiping out your $1,000 account. I’m sure you would stop what you’re doing, and re-evaluate your trading plan, long before you had taken that many consecutive losses.
[B]So, looked at in this way, $1,000 in capital is enough to do what you want to do.[/B]
I don’t know how [I][B]janks peter[/B][/I] calculated the $1,589.60 figure which he recommended to you, but I would suggest a starting balance close to his recommendation, but arrived at differently. Just using a rule-of-thumb that I like, I suggest you limit your use of [I]actual leverage[/I] to no more than 10 times your capital.
In other words, notional value of trade ÷ capital = 10 or less. So, capital = notional value of trade ÷ 10.
10,000 units of GBP/USD (at a GBP/USD price of 1.5000) is a notional value of $15,000. One-tenth of that is $1,500.
[B]So, this rule-of-thumb says that you need $1,500 in capital to place a trade with a notional value of $15,000.[/B]