CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Excess volatility increases risk further. Be cautious. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
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Most beginner questions have a sum for an answer — Pakistan

«How much will this cost», «why did that change», «can I even place this» — three of the commonest questions, and all three are settled by arithmetic rather than opinion. Sorted below by which operation finishes them, so the answer can be reproduced instead of remembered.

Four kinds of question. A lookup is answered by opening a specification window. A multiplication turns a count into money. A division turns money into a size. And a fourth kind has no arithmetic in it at all — those are the questions about whether to trade, and no page on this site answers them.

Which operation settles which question

The questionSettled byWhere the inputs are
How many units am I actually holding?MultiplicationSize × units per lot
What is one pip worth to me?MultiplicationUnits × one step of price
How much gets held aside?DivisionValue ÷ the leverage figure
What size should I place?DivisionAccepted loss ÷ (distance × money per pip)
What did entering cost me?MultiplicationSpread in points × money per point
Can this size be placed at all?LookupSmallest size and step, in the specification
Should I take this trade?Nothing arithmeticNot on this site

Answered with the working shown

How much is a pip worth on the smallest trade I can place?

0.01 lots of a currency pair is 1,000 units. One pip on most pairs is 0.0001 of price. 1,000 × 0.0001 = $0.10 a pip. Twenty pips is $2.

Why is the same size a different amount of money on another instrument?

Because units in one lot is set per contract. Change that multiplier and every figure downstream changes with it — contract size has the detail.

How do I work out what a trade will hold aside?

Size × units per lot × price ÷ the leverage figure. 0.01 lots at 1.1000 with 100 as the divisor is about $11.

What size does a $5 risk over a 25-pip stop give?

25 × $10 = $250 per full lot. 5 ÷ 250 = 0.02 lots, which is placeable. Halve the accepted loss and it becomes 0.01.

My answer came out at 0.004 lots. What now?

The sum is finished; the size is under the floor. Change the accepted loss or the stop distance — the sizing page lists what each change costs.

Why does a fresh position show a small loss immediately?

The spread. It is the gap between the two quotes, and priced at your size it is the head start the position begins with.

How do I turn a spread in pips into money?

Multiply by money per pip at your size. A 0.3-pip spread on a full lot of a dollar-quoted pair is 0.3 × $10 = $3.

Is a commission counted once or twice?

Per side, so a round turn counts two. Where a type carries none the line is $0 and the sum ends there.

The reserved figure changed although I placed nothing. Why?

It is computed from units × price, and the price moved. The leverage figure did not change.

Why can I not withdraw the whole balance while a trade is open?

Withdrawals draw on free margin — equity minus everything fenced off. shows the subtraction.

Are pips and points the same thing?

No. On a five-decimal quote the fourth digit is the pip and the fifth is a point, so ten points make one pip — and mixing them is an error of ten times.

Does a bigger leverage figure increase what a losing trade costs?

Not by itself. It divides the reservation. What raises the cost of being wrong is a bigger size, which a bigger figure makes possible.

How do I check any of these figures without money?

Predict the number, then open the same ticket on a free demo and compare. The drills set out four worth doing.

What is the smallest real trade?

0.01 lots on a Standard account, which puts a pip at about ten cents on a dollar-quoted pair. Accounts counted in smaller units express the same trade differently.

Which figure should I never take from a guide, including this one?

Any constant: units per lot, the leverage figure, the step size. Read them on your own screen; a borrowed one is wrong by a factor, not by a rounding.

Can this site tell me what to buy?

No. It is an independent guide that works out figures; it holds no money, opens no accounts and has no opinion on any trade.

The questions with no sum behind them

  • Whether an idea is any good. Arithmetic sizes it; it does not judge it.
  • Where to put the stop. A judgement typed into a ticket, taken as given by every formula here.
  • What the price will do next. No figure on this site forecasts anything.
  • Whether trading suits you at all. It carries a high risk of losing money, and nobody can promise otherwise.

Where the sums are set out in full

The divisions

Accepted loss to size, and value to reservation.

The multiplications

Units, money per pip, and the cost of crossing the spread.

The lookups

Which window each constant lives in.

Check any answer here against a live screen.

A free demo prints the same figures on virtual money, with nothing to send and no time limit.

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