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One Contract Size, Two Answers: Margin and Pip Value · Indonesia

FxPro provides trading calculators so you can work out margin, pip value and potential profit or loss before placing a trade.

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One contract size feeds two different sums on this page, and confusing them is the usual reason a position turns out larger than intended. Margin is position value divided by leverage — at 1:200 that is 0.5% of the position — and it is collateral held in your balance currency, not a cost. Pip value is the other sum: contract size times the size of one pip, born in the currency the pair is quoted in, and it is what converts a stop distance in pips into an amount of money. FxPro's margin, pip, profit/loss and swap calculators run both before the order is placed, free inside the platforms. The order that works is pip value first, because it decides the volume, and margin second, because it only tells you whether the balance can carry that volume.

Measured contract values for your calculations

Read live from FxPro’s MT5 Raw+ feed — the contract size, tick value, lot limits and average daily range behind any margin, pip-value, stop-size or profit calculation:

InstrumentContract sizeTick value (USD)Min lotMax lotAvg daily range
EUR/USD100,000$1.000.0150053.4 pips
GBP/USD100,000$1.000.0150065 pips
AUD/USD100,000$1.000.0150045.1 pips
USD/CAD100,000$0.720.0150056 pips
USD/JPY100,000$0.630.01500155.1 pips
XAU/USD (Gold)100$1.000.015009410.9 pips

Tick value is the cash change per minimum price move, per standard lot; the 14-day average daily range helps you size stops and targets. Account stop-out levels (measured): margin call at 10%, stop-out at 0% — confirm the live values in your terminal.

Work out your margin

Position value
Required margin

Margin = position size ÷ leverage. Approximate, for USD-quoted forex pairs (1 standard lot = 100,000 units); margin is shown in USD and varies with the live price. Your exact margin appears in your FxPro platform.

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Plan before you trade

Use the calculators alongside our spreads and swap rates pages to estimate your total trading costs.

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Two sums out of one contract size

The number 100,000 does two unrelated jobs on an FX major. Multiplied by the price and divided by the leverage it gives the margin — the collateral the account has to set aside, denominated in the balance currency. Multiplied by 0.0001 it gives the pip value — the money one pip of movement is worth, denominated in the quote currency.

They answer different questions. Margin answers whether the position can be opened at all; pip value answers what the position does to the balance once it moves. A trader who sizes on margin alone ends up with whatever risk the leverage happened to allow, which is not a decision so much as a leftover.

Sizing from money per pip rather than from lots

Working backwards is more reliable than working forwards. Decide the amount of money a stop is allowed to cost, divide it by the pip distance to that stop, and you have the money per pip the position may carry. Divide that by the pip value of one lot and you have the volume, rounded down to the 0.01-lot step the platform accepts.

Done in that order the volume is an output rather than a guess, and the leverage setting stops being part of the risk decision — it only decides whether the balance has room for the position the arithmetic asked for.

Three currencies can appear in one ticket

A single FX position touches three currency slots. The base currency defines what one lot controls, the quote currency is where the pip value and the profit are born, and the balance currency is where the result finally lands. When two of the three coincide — a dollar-quoted pair on a dollar balance — the arithmetic looks like one step and the pip value is a constant.

When they do not coincide, nothing about the method changes: the last step is a conversion at the live rate, applied by the platform to a figure that was already correct in the quote currency. It is worth knowing which slot each intermediate number belongs to, because a figure copied from the wrong slot is wrong by a whole exchange rate rather than by a rounding error.

Frequently asked questions

Is the margin figure a cost or a deposit against the position?
It is collateral. Margin is position size divided by leverage — at 1:200, 0.5% of the position — and it is held while the trade is open rather than spent. The costs are separate: the spread, the commission of $3.50 per lot per side on raw-spread accounts, and any overnight swap.
How do I get from a stop distance in pips to an amount of money?
Multiply the distance by the pip value for one lot, then by your volume. On an FX major one lot is 100,000 units, so a pip is 10 units of the quote currency — $10 on a dollar-quoted pair. A 20-pip stop on one lot therefore risks about $200 there, and about $2 on the 0.01-lot minimum.
Why does the pip value stay put on EUR/USD but move on USD/JPY?
Because a pip is created in the quote currency. On a dollar-quoted pair it is already dollars, so it is a fixed $10 per standard lot. On a yen-quoted pair it is 1,000 yen per lot, and what that comes to in a dollar balance follows the exchange rate, which is why the calculator recomputes it at the live price.
Which calculator does which half of the arithmetic?
FxPro provides margin, pip, profit/loss and swap calculators, free inside the FxPro trading platforms. The margin calculator does the collateral sum at your chosen leverage, the pip calculator does the money-per-pip sum, and the profit/loss and swap calculators combine them so a whole trade can be planned end to end.
Which leverage should I put into the margin sum?
The one that applies to the instrument and account you will actually trade — leverage at FxPro runs up to 1:200 depending on the instrument, and the required margin is the position value divided by that figure. A higher setting reduces the collateral held, not the money at stake per pip.
Is the trading cost included in the calculator output?
No. Margin and pip value are contract arithmetic; the spread and the $3.50-per-side commission on raw-spread accounts are a separate line. Work out the pip value first, then price the spread with the same number and add the commission in cash — the measured cost figures are on our spreads and live spreads pages.
What does one pip come to on the smallest position?
The minimum order is 0.01 of a lot, one hundredth of a standard contract, so it controls 1,000 units on an FX major and its pip is a hundredth of the standard-lot figure — about ten cents on a dollar-quoted major. Everything between the minimum and the maximum scales in a straight line from there.

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