Position size calculator

Risking 1% means $1 per trade. With a 50-pip stop at pip size 0.10 (a $5 move, $10 per pip per lot) the maths gives 0.002 lots, below the 0.01 minimum. On a standard account a $100 balance can only take 0.01 lot with a stop of 10 pips or less at 1% risk, which is too tight for gold. Realistic options are a cent account, a larger balance, or accepting a higher risk percentage and understanding what that does to drawdown. The calculator shows the exact figure so you decide with the numbers in front of you.

With pip size 0.10, a $1.00 move in the gold price is 10 pips, and one pip is worth $10 per standard lot (100 oz). Some brokers and platforms count the last digit (0.01) as a pip, which makes the same $1.00 move 100 "pips" worth $1 each per lot. The calculator lets you pick either definition; the money result is the same as long as the stop is measured in the same units.

Common rules of thumb are 0.5% to 2% per trade, and many prop firms cap daily loss at 4-5%, which limits how many 1% trades you can lose in a day. Nothing here is advice: enter a few percentages, look at the lot sizes and at the drawdown-recovery table in the risk/reward calculator, and pick a number you can hold through ten losses in a row.

Yes. Choose the account currency and enter the rate for one US dollar; balance and risk are then read in your currency and every money result is shown in it, with the USD figure alongside. The pre-filled rate is an example and should be replaced with today's rate from your broker.

It follows the journal's rules. Layers are spread evenly from the zone start to the zone end with equal lots; the stop sits a set number of pips beyond the zone end; the target is measured from the last layer that filled. Each filled layer has its own distance to the stop, so the risk is the sum over the layers, and the lot per layer is your risk amount divided by that sum times the pip value. Deeper layers risk less, earlier layers more, and the total lands exactly on your risk figure.

Three usual reasons: the contract size differs (100 oz per lot for gold is standard, but indices and crypto vary a lot), the pair is quoted in a currency other than USD so the value moves with the exchange rate, or the platform counts points instead of pips. Check the symbol specification in MT5 (right-click the symbol, Specification) and use the custom instrument option if your broker differs.