Forex Stop Loss Calculator
Two prices in — the entry and the stop — and everything else follows: the distance in pips, the position size that keeps that distance inside your risk budget, and the money you actually lose if it is hit. Below it, what a run of losses does to the account, and what the volume you typed means in units.
Stop loss inputs
Sets the pip size. Four and five decimals put a pip on 0.0001; two and three put it on 0.01, the JPY convention.
From the pip calculator, or from the tick value in your platform's symbol specification.
Fill this in only if your entry came off a bid chart. You are filled on the other side and closed on the bad side, so the loss covers one spread more than the distance you measured.
Stop loss results
Risk per trade, and what a losing run costs
Risk per trade inputs
Negative for open losses. Balance plus this figure is equity.
Risk per trade results
What a run of losses costs at 1% and 2%
Every row is the same two formulas: what is left after N losses is the starting amount multiplied by (1 minus the percentage), and the gain needed to get back is the reciprocal of what is left, minus one. The additive column is the number people say out loud — N times the percentage — and it is wrong in both directions.
| Losses in a row | Down by at 1% | Back at 1% | Down by at 2% | Back at 2% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.00% | +1.01% | 2.00% | +2.04% |
| 3 | 2.97% | +3.06% | 5.88% | +6.25% |
| 5 | 4.90% | +5.15% | 9.61% | +10.63% |
| 10 | 9.56% | +10.57% | 18.29% | +22.39% |
| 20 | 18.21% | +22.26% | 33.24% | +49.79% |
Ten losses at 2% is not 20%: it is 18.29%. That is the only sense in which a fixed percentage is kinder than a fixed amount. The way back is where it stops being kind — 18.29% down needs a 22.39% gain, and the gap between the two grows with every loss.
Volume to units — what the size actually buys
Volume inputs
From the symbol specification, not from a convention. It is the field that decides what a lot means here.
Leave at 1 if the pair is quoted in your account currency. Otherwise type the rate — the conversion happens at the rate on the day, not at this one.
Volume results
The stop comes first and the size comes second
Everything on this page runs in one direction. You decide where the trade is wrong — a level that, if price reaches it, means the reason for the trade is gone — and that level decides how many pips are at stake. The pips then decide the size, because the money you are willing to lose is fixed and the pips tell you what one lot of those pips costs.
Running it the other way is the common failure. Pick a size first, then look for a stop that fits it, and the stop lands wherever the arithmetic needs it to land rather than wherever the trade stops being right. The size looks tidy and the stop is a number pulled out of the air. A stop that is invented to fit a position is not a stop.
The order also explains why the same risk percentage produces wildly different sizes. Two percent of an account is one number of dollars. Spread over a ten pip stop it buys a large position; spread over a hundred pip stop it buys a tenth of that. The percentage did not change. The stop did, and the stop is the part that belongs to the trade rather than to the account.
The percentage is a ceiling, not the risk
A risk percentage is a budget you set before you know what size the platform will accept. The size the arithmetic asks for is a continuous number; the size you can enter is not, because a symbol only accepts volumes that land on its step. The two differ, and the money at risk differs with them.
Rounding downwards is the direction that keeps the budget intact. The position comes out slightly smaller than planned, so the money at risk comes in under the limit rather than over it. The first tool above rounds down and then reports the risk at the size you can actually place, so the gap is visible rather than silent — that is what the "share of the account at risk" line is for. It is nearly always a little under the percentage you typed, and if it is ever over it, the size was rounded the wrong way somewhere else.
The floor is a harder limit than the step. If the size the risk allows is below the symbol's minimum volume, there is no version of this trade that fits the plan, and no amount of rounding gets you there. The only exits are a tighter stop — which raises the size the risk allows — or no trade.
Balance or equity: what the percentage is taken of
Balance is what the account holds with nothing open. Equity is balance plus the floating result on everything currently open. A percentage applied to one is a different number of dollars from the same percentage applied to the other, and the gap is exactly the floating figure.
Which one matters depends on how many positions you carry. With nothing open they are the same number and the question is academic. With five open trades showing a loss, equity is the smaller of the two, and a percentage of balance risks more of what you actually have left than the same percentage of equity does. With open profits the position reverses: equity is larger, so a percentage of it risks more dollars.
Neither is a rule, and this page does not pick one for you — the second tool takes the percentage of whichever you select and prints the base it used, so the choice is on the record instead of buried in the number. What matters is that you make the same choice every time, because switching between the two mid-run changes the dollar amount without changing the stated percentage.
Losses multiply, and the way back is longer than the way down
A fixed percentage takes a share of whatever the account holds at the moment, not of what it held when the run started. Ten losses at two percent of a 10,000 account therefore does not cost 2,000. The first costs 200, the second costs two percent of 9,800, which is 196, and by the tenth the account is down 18.29%.
That figure is smaller than the 20% you get by adding them up, which is the one sense in which a fixed percentage is gentler than a fixed dollar amount. The way back is where it stops being gentle. Getting from 81.71% of where you started back to 100% needs a gain of 22.39% on what is left, and the gap between the fall and the climb widens with every loss in the run: at twenty losses it is 33.24% down and 49.79% back.
The table above is that arithmetic for both percentages at five run lengths, and the second tool computes it for whatever numbers you enter. Two things it shows that the percentage alone does not: how many losses in a row it takes to halve the account — sixty-nine at one percent, thirty-five at two — and what happens if you keep risking the same dollar amount instead of the same percentage.
A fixed dollar amount does not stay a fixed percentage
The alternative to a fixed percentage is a fixed amount of money per trade, which usually means a fixed number of lots held constant for a while. The dollar risk stays put; the account does not. After a losing run, the same dollars are a larger share of a smaller account, so the risk percentage drifts upward without anyone deciding that it should.
The second tool prints that drifted figure next to the starting one. In the default case — one percent of 10,000, so 100 dollars — ten losses leave 9,000, and the same 100 dollars is now 1.11% of the account. Nothing was changed on purpose and the risk went up by an eleventh. Run it far enough and the drift is the whole story: a fixed amount risked on an account that has halved is twice the percentage it started as.
This is the trade-off, and it is arithmetic rather than opinion. The fixed percentage shrinks the position after losses, so recovery from a drawdown takes longer in good conditions. The fixed amount keeps the position, so the account shrinks faster in bad ones and the percentage quietly climbs. Whichever you choose, the choice is only stable if the percentage is recomputed on the current base each time.
Risk per trade is not risk per account
A per-trade limit bounds one position. It says nothing about six of them open at once. Six trades at one percent each is six percent of the account moving together, and the money at risk is the sum, which is the number to check before the next order goes in rather than after.
The sum is not the whole of it either, because positions in different symbols can be the same bet. A long in EURUSD and a long in GBPUSD are both long the same thing against the dollar, and both lose together when the dollar strengthens. Two trades that looked like two independent one percent risks behave like one two percent risk on the day it matters. Counting the money at risk per currency, rather than per pair, is the check that catches this — and it needs no market view to do.
A stop is an order, not a guarantee
Everything above treats the stop as a price, because that is what you type into the platform. What it actually is, is an instruction: once price trades at or through that level, close the position at the best price available. Those two are the same thing most of the time and not the same thing when they need to be.
Over a weekend, across a data release, or through any gap, price can move from one side of your level to the other without trading at it. The order triggers and fills where it can, which is worse than the level. This is why the money at risk is a planning figure: it is what the trade costs when the stop does its job, not a ceiling on what a trade can cost.
There is a smaller, constant version of the same thing. Your levels come off a chart, and charts generally draw the bid. A long is filled at the ask and closed at the bid, so the distance you measured off the chart is one spread shorter than the distance you actually pay for. The first tool takes an optional spread and adds it once, which is why "distance you actually lose over" can sit a pip above the distance you typed.
What this page does not assume
No contract size, no pip value, no volume step, no minimum or maximum volume, no spread and no currency rate. Every one of them is a field on this page or a figure you type, because every one of them is set by a symbol on a broker and none of them is a fact about forex in general.
No leverage and no margin either. Leverage changes what a position costs to hold, not what it costs to lose; those are two different numbers and only one of them is risk. The margin your platform will demand is built from settings this page cannot see, so no tool here prints one.
No prices. There is no market feed behind this site, and every price on the page is one you typed. That is what makes the arithmetic checkable against your own platform line by line instead of something you have to trust.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate stop loss in forex?
Decide the level first, then measure it. Take the distance between your entry price and your stop price, divide by the pip size for that pair — 0.0001 on a four-decimal pair, 0.01 on a JPY pair — and you have the stop in pips. Multiply by the money one pip is worth per lot and you have what the stop costs per lot. The first tool on this page does all three from the two prices.
What percentage should I risk per trade?
This page does not pick one for you, because there is no number that is right without knowing the strategy around it. What it does instead is show what each number does: what a run of losses takes out of the account, how long the way back is, and how many losses in a row it takes to halve it. Run the percentages you are deciding between through the second tool and the difference is arithmetic rather than a matter of taste.
How many pips should my stop loss be?
As many as the distance to the level where the trade stops being right. That distance is a property of the chart, and it is different on every trade — a stop that is always twenty pips is a position sizing rule wearing a risk management label. The percentage then adjusts the size to fit the distance, which is the direction the calculation is meant to run in.
Is a stop loss guaranteed?
No. It is an order that triggers at a level and fills at whatever price is available, and through a gap or a weekend that price can be well past the level. Treat the money at risk as the planned cost of the trade, not as a maximum the platform enforces.
Does leverage change how much I risk?
No. Leverage changes the margin a position costs to hold. The risk is set by the account size, the percentage and the stop distance, none of which involve leverage. A small account with high leverage risks the same dollars on the same trade as a large account with none — it just has less left over once the position is open.
Should the risk be calculated on balance or on equity?
Either, as long as it is the same one every time. Balance ignores open positions and equity includes them, so with open losses the two give different dollar amounts for the same percentage. Pick one and keep it: switching between them changes the money without changing the number you wrote down.
What is a risk per trade calculator?
A tool that turns a percentage of your account into a number of dollars, and then shows what repeated losses at that size do to the account. The second tool above does both: the dollar amount on the base you select, and the account after a run of losses with the gain needed to recover it.
How many units is 0.1 lots?
Whatever 0.1 times the contract size comes to, and the contract size is per symbol rather than a forex constant. At the common 100,000 units per lot it is 10,000 units; on a symbol set to 10,000 it is 1,000. The third tool above takes the contract size as an input and prints the units rather than assuming the convention.
Give the lot size calculator a stop in pips and it returns the size directly. The risk reward calculator takes the other half — what the target pays against what the stop costs — and the pip calculator gives the per-pip figure this page asks for. If the size is going into MetaTrader, the MT4 lot size calculator handles the volume step and the points-to-pips conversion. The same calculation on instruments with no standard contract has its own pages: XAUUSD, US30 and BTCUSD.