How to calculate it
| Lot | Units | Pip value, EUR/USD |
|---|---|---|
| 1.00 standard | 100,000 | $10.00 |
| 0.10 mini | 10,000 | $1.00 |
| 0.01 micro | 1,000 | $0.10 |
Worked through with real numbers
A $5,000 account risking 1% ($50) with an 18 pip stop on EUR/USD:
The same 0.27 lots on a 60 pip stop would risk $162, more than three times the plan. Lots must be recalculated for every trade, because the stop changes every trade.
On gold, if your broker's contract is 100 ounces per lot, a $1 move is $100 per lot. Another broker may use a different size, which is why copying lot sizes from someone else's screenshot is dangerous.
Where traders get it wrong
- Reusing yesterday's lot size. A new stop distance needs a new size.
- Rounding up. 0.277 becomes 0.27, never 0.28.
- Assuming contract sizes match across brokers. Metals, indices and crypto CFDs vary.
Tracking it in your journal
The journal's position size calculator gives you lot size from account, risk % and stop. Synced trades record the real lot size, and R is calculated from the actual size and stop, so a mis-sized trade shows up as an R that does not match your plan.
See your own Lot Size from real trades
Every figure on this page is more useful when it is yours. The free journal works it out from the trades you log or sync.
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