Position size calculator
Enter your balance, what you are willing to lose and where your stop goes. You get the lots, contracts or coins to trade, rounded down to what you can really order, with the risk drawn to scale. For forex, gold, futures and crypto.
Market type
Risk is
Adds the risk to reward and what the trade makes if the target is reached.
Position size
0.40 lots
Loses $100.00 if the stop is hit (1% of the account).
= $2.50
Drag the stop or target line, or focus one and use the arrow keys. Each block is what one 0.01 lot loses at the stop.
- Money at risk
- $100.00
- Stop distance
- 25 pips
- Position value
- $44,000
- Risk to reward
- 1:2
- Makes at target
- $200.00
- Wins needed to break even
- 33%
The position size formula
Position size = money at risk ÷ loss per unit at the stop
Money at risk is your balance times the percentage you risk, or a fixed amount. Loss per unit is how much one lot, contract or coin loses between your entry and your stop. Each market measures it its own way:
- Forex and gold: pips to the stop × pip value of one lot. A 25-pip stop on EUR/USD costs 25 × $10 = $250 a lot.
- Futures: ticks to the stop × tick value. A 40-point stop on MNQ is 160 ticks × $0.50 = $80 a contract.
- Crypto and stocks: the stop distance in dollars, per coin or share. A $1,500 stop on bitcoin costs $1,500 a coin.
The stop comes first, the size follows
A common mistake is to pick a size that feels right and then squeeze the stop to fit it. That puts the stop where the money says, not where the trade idea is proven wrong, and stops placed for money get hit by ordinary noise.
Put the stop where the setup fails: under the swing low, beyond the zone. Then let the size absorb the distance. A wide stop means a small position, a tight stop a bigger one, and the money at risk stays the same either way.
How much to risk per trade
There is no single right number, but the effect of the choice is easy to see. Ten losing trades in a row, which happens to every strategy sooner or later, cost 9.6% of the account at 1% risk, 18.3% at 2% and 40.1% at 5%. The deeper the hole, the more it takes to climb out: see the drawdown recovery calculator.
Rounding down, on purpose
The exact answer is rarely a size you can order. The calculator always rounds down, to whole contracts, 0.01 lots or the coin's smallest step, so the real risk is at or under your limit, never over it. It shows how much risk the rounding leaves unused, the gap at the top of the bucket.
Calculators for one market
The same calculator, set up for one market with its contract facts and a table of what moves are worth: