Margin and leverage are two important terms that are usually hard for the forex traders to understand. Leverage is a feature offered by the broker, to help the traders to trade larger amounts of securities by having a smaller account balance. For example, when your account leverage is This was just an example. Now you tell me please. Leverage was so easy to understand, right?

I had to explain it first, to become able to talk about the other term which is margin. When you set the volume to 0. When you have no open positions, balance is the amount of the money you have in your account. When you have no positions, no money from your account is used as the margin. Therefore, all the money you have in your account is free.

As long as you have no positions, your account equity and free margin are the same as your account balance.

Margin level is very important. Brokers use it to determine whether the traders can take any new positions or not. This limit is called Margin Call Level. It happens when you have losing position s and the market keeps on going against you and when your account equity equals the margin, you will not be able to take any new positions anymore. If the market keeps on going against you, the broker will have to close your losing positions. Different brokers have different limits and policies for this too.

This limit is called Stop Out Level. It starts closing from the biggest losing position first. The reason is that the broker can not allow you to lose more than the money you have deposited in your account. The market can keep on going against you forever and you lose all the money you have in your account and then get a negative balance if nobody closes your losing positions.

When you have some open positions and some pending orders at the same time, and the market wants to trigger one of your pending orders while you have no enough free margin in your account, that pending order will not be triggered or will become cancelled automatically. But the the truth is that your pending orders could not be triggered or were cancelled because you had no enough free margin in your account. You have to have free money in your account to take a new position.

However, you have to know what they are and what they mean. The terminal will be opened and it shows your account balance, equity, margin, free margin and margin level. Balance will change only when you close the position. I hope you are not confused. It is very easy to understand. You may need to read the above explanations for a few times to completely digest the terms I explained. Is the bonus you receive from the broker to become able to trade large amounts with having a small amount of money in your account.

When the leverage is Or, you can trade units with one unit of you account balance. Is the total amount of the money you have in your account before taking any position. When you have no open positions, your account equity will be the same as your account balance. Free margin is the money that is not engaged in any trade and you can use it to take more positions.

You remember what the margin or required margin was, right? Free margin is the difference of the equity and the required margin. If your open positions make money , the more they go to profit, the greater equity you will have, and so you will have more free margin. Is the level that if your margin level goes below, you will not be able to take any new positions.

Margin call level is determined by the broker. When you have losing positions, your margin level goes down and becomes close to the margin call level. When you have winning positions, your margin level goes up. Is the level that if your margin level goes below, the system starts closing your losing positions. It closes the biggest losing position first. If this helps the margin level go above the stop out level, no more positions will be closed. Then if your other losing positions keep on losing and the margin level goes below the stop out level again, the system closes another losing position which is the biggest open losing position.

I was surching for some helpfull material to understand forex term. I found that this artical is very helpful and easy to understand for me.

Can you please let me know how to calculate this for a account currency is Euro. How can i calculate margin here ratio is Really there is lot of information and have easy way to understand. I think this is best where is lot of knowledge and better site.

I am currently trading with a broker who leverage 1: I also have tried to contact him many times but get no feedback, however I still receive daily reports from him. Lately he has lost a lot of trades which worries me. Your advice would be appreciated. What if I start a trade risking the whole account with balance equals equity equals margin right at the very beginning?

So no free margin available. This is a suicidal strategy for an idiot: And that is not to mention the false price spikes they cause to liquidate clients, stop hunting, and numerous other methods to steal your money, just like the lying Jews in the Temple, whom Jesus chased into the dirt. The situation right now, the buying position equal the selling position and my account is on Margin Call.

I need your advise what I should do? And how can I keep my account alive? Your prompt advise is appreciated, cause I have one weak to act otherwise my account will be wiped out. You mean you have hedged and you have taken a long and a short position of the same currency pair at the same time?

Not Hedging, what happened the positions I had reached a losses nearly equal my balance, the system made new positions equal the opened ones which makes the Equity and free Margin almost zero instead of closing positions one by one as you said. This is really strange, because how the system can take new positions while your losing position equals your account balance? There was no free margin in your account for taking any new position. I think you have nothing to lose now if you hold your positions.

If you close, you will lose all you have in your balance. However, if you hold, then chances are the price turns around and you get out of this trap. If the price keeps on going against you, then you will lose no more than your balance which is already lost indeed. Can somebody tell me how to get the margin coverage with the information they give me? Which of the following is false?

If the free margin is , The price is not the good one. All I have to say is thank you. Could you please explain what volume set to 0. Thanks for your wonderful guide. I feel that I came to correct path after know you in LuckScout. Hopefully to go long journey with your brilliant way. I have question, regarding Margin. Like you said margin is based on leverage calculation.

I have 2 open position the EURCAD with the price 1. My balance is I am computing it but my computation gives me a margin of I am quite confuse how you do it.

Understanding Leverage in Forex Trading | OANDA

Hope you can help me out with this. To have a 0. Oops my computation is still wrong, but still why is my account not reflecting the true computation. Thank you so much Chris.

To have just a 0. Hi Chris, Thanks for wonderful article. I have referred this article to many people who have just stepped in Forex. Thank you Chris for that you are! My english is very low, so I need to translate all articles with google dictionary and with my knowlagde about english. Thank you for your knowledge and time. I follow LuckScout everyday.

Margin Definition | What Does Margin Mean | IG UK

Have a nice day Regards BeQuiet from Poland. Hey Chris, what usualy is bigger in a proffesional trader account, the balance or the equity? And last, how mt4 decide which trade to close in that case, thank you. I learned a lot now. I never imagined a profit which is much bigger more than double from the account balance.

They are used to hold their positions for a long time and many of their positions go to profit a lot. Therefore, the profit is sometimes higher than the balance, but please note that it happens after a long time, not within a week or a few months. Thank you for your lessons. But I confused about one thing.

Let say I decide to open an account and choose to use 1: To make it simple, lets say I deposit and buy 0. Then my account will look like this: Also, my Equity will be equal to my Margin right from the start.

And, if the trade is floating minus, isnt it means that I can get stop out? This is really confusing. I hope I dont make you confuse and you get my point. When you get margin call, you will not be able to take any new positions, but your positions will not be closed.

Margin in Forex trading. Margin level vs Margin call

Usually the stop out level is set in the way that your position will not be closed as long as you have money in your account. This is not true: Please explain this properly to retail speculators who know nothing about how MMs automatically liquidate positions in Metatrader from their initial trade. This is priceless , I did found it very difficult to understand Margin even instaForex failed to make me understand it. Is it gonna be gone too or the broker will release it back to my account?

Typically, I submit pending orders for two positions with the same lot size. On this occasion, however, I used a market order for my first position but when I went to open my second position, I found that my balance was already fully employed. It was the only position open at the time, so there were no other open positions to take away from my available funds.

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated, sir. And I thank you ahead of time for your response. The MAJOR ITEM NOT EXPLAINED IN THIS ARTICLE is this: The principal reason you WILL get a margin call is the that the software you are using usually Metatrader is controlled and created by the Kosher Nostra in Russia. This platform trades DIRECTLY against your puny account, until you are wiped out.

Do not feel that this is unfair: The SECOND reason you WILL get margin called although it can take months in some cases, if you work hard to prevent it is that your LOT SIZE per transaction is too large.

Instead, you will be margined out based on the TOTAL EQUITY dropping below the required margin. Doing this should allow the majority of retail traders to buckle the entire Metatrader mafia and destroy it.

Hi Chris, I have been searching for a formula to calculate Free margin that includes hedge trades. I will surely apply my knowledge from this article while I am trading on my demo account ,and will get back to you if I got any question. With bigger leverage I require less margin and can make more trades. Leverage is not that important. It is only a problem for novice traders who take so many positions.

By the way, I just signed up with a broker that uses CTrader platform which I found much friendly than MT4. I know experienced traders will never consider to switch to another trading platform but I recommend it for newcommers. For instance, you can set up a trade to take profits in steps. Something that you posted somewhere that you do it manually. As we have learnt the minimum size to enter a trade is 10k units.

Does it mean that I have to buy 10k units or do I pay with 10k units? I mean like this: Therefore I choose 1: But can someone tell me weather consistently profitable traders use MT, or do I need to look elsewhere? With prices like 1. But they become like 1. The most clear and clean explanation so far concerning the subject matter of FX. Leave a Reply Cancel reply:. Your email address will not be published. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.

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