Best leverage and lot size for $1000 deposit

Like the title says...
This is for trading 4h and daily charts mainly.

I would like to know from others experience what would be a balanced size?


From my demo experience i believe 1:100 with 0.03-0.05 per trade is profitable and consistent in the long term.

Any advice?

The most important question, is how much you want to risk on each trade. This depends on your reward/risk ratio - systems with a higher r/r win less often and need to risk less.
When you know what percentage of your account you want to risk each time, adjust your position size every time you analyze a trade according to where your s/l is. When you know how many pips you are going to risk on that particular trade, and how much money you want to risk, calculate the position size so that number of pips equals the risk target. Example - with a $1000 deposit and risking 2% on each trade, you want to risk $20 per trade. $20 risk could mean a 100 pip stop or it could mean a 5 pip stop, depending on your position size.
If you do this correctly the leverage question is irrelevant, just set it as high as the broker will let you and forget about it. TBH I don't even know how much leverage I have, with a proper risk model it doesn't matter. What matters is percentage of balance risked. Don't trade live until you have built a solid risk model. Here is a couple of good videos on the subject

http://www.informedtrades.com/6968-h...rs-losers.html

for me, in a mini account with 1000 or less, my max lot size would be 0.01.... and for some reason here in the states we say leverage different.... my leverage would be 50 to 1.... which translates to 1:50......

once the account was doubled, the lot size would be doubled.... once tripled lot size tripled and so on.....

might seem small, but grains of sand add up......h

Thanks for that numbnuts. Yes i should of asked how much to risk per trade with stop loss, but considering im a noob i wanted to know the more detailed numbers of the risk.

0.01 with 50 to 1 is the same as 0.02 with 100 to 1 leverage, if my maths is correct.

I am also trading in a mini account with $1000. At the moment I am using 0.02 to trade like you. Max risk is 1% per trade. So the dollar amnt is $10 per trade. If you trade with 0.02 lots, then the max stop loss is 50pips. If you trade in 1Hr - 15 Min charts 50 pips SL is a good move. But if you trade 4Hr to Daily Time frames probably you should use 100 pips stop loss with 0.01 lots. So the risk will be the same 1%. Try to maintain minimum 1:2 R/R ratio per trade.

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hey teofil..... some might consider 0.01 with 50 to 1 is the same as 0.02 with 100 to 1 leverage as being correct, but from my veiw they are not.....

the closer you look and more you trade it will become apparrent anytime you double the lot, things are seldom the same.....h

"for me, in a mini account with 1000 or less, my max lot size would be 0.01.... "

So, how many time to reach 2000? 3, 4, 5 years?

Yes, this is my only issue with the consistent low risk.

I will use higher size (0.05-0.20) when i see good and obvious moves like it happened last week with eur/jpy. But other than that, most days low risk is the way to go.

A flexible market needs a flexible trader.

I trade only 4H and Daily.

On demo account i didn't use SL. Or if i did it was very wide like Alanamc suggested.

I had 2 accounts on demo.


High risk demo account: Starting with 2000$ and using 0.50-3.00 size with no SL, when i was losing and TDI signalled flat green line then i stopped the loss manually. I made 1050% of my initial deposit in 2 weeks (yes i could of lost it all if i wasnt careful).


Low risk demo account: Again with 2000$ but 0.10 - 0.40 and no stop loss, used TDI signals again. I made 150% in about 3 months (could of been more but made some stupid amateur mistakes).

hey limprobale..... your probably correct if someone was manually trading.... it would take a long long time..... way too long for me.....

however, manual trading is just not one of my abilities..... i'll screw it up everytime..... so i trade solely with ea's..... it takes me out of the picture..... other than the creation of the ea of course.... now that i can do......

below is a small acccount running a single ea started with i believe 1200..... it has been well documented on another forum..... it is currently over 4000 in less than 5 months.....

the original lot size was 0.01.... that ea will use a larger lot size only when current trades are far enough ahead to cover the extra risk....

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the original request was for ideas on "a balanced size" on a 1000$ account..... for me, it would be 0.01 at 50 to 1 leverage.....h

So you increase size depending on the winning trades running?

hey teo..... only at appropriate times, yes it will bump the lot size up....

below is the usdcad current chart in that account.... the ea plots all closed trades, really just for my benefit..... but you can see 10 trades were closed 12 days ago.... those trades were re-entered yesterday..... the total combined lots of the 10 closed trades was divided among the 3 new trades.... the top 3 that are currently loosing.....

this was only allowed because there are about 17 profitable trades beneath and the 10 trades had been closed earlier.....h

I see, so you just risk more if you can afford it. Makes sense.

I just started trading live, but already on a losing streak.. and i am down 4% on my first week. Made some silly mistakes on few rushed trades, with combination of fear... Lucky i took advices here and didnt risk more.

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hey teofil..... we all have.... time cures that.....

below is a favorite quote of mine from a favorite thread of mine from days gone by..... once upon a time, people could ask simple questions and get polite answers....... now days you risk gettin shot at......h

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Trading 0.01(1000) with $1000 is just crazy, that's about - 1:1 = NO LEVERAGE...............one might as well go do some value-investing or something in stocks & even that might outperform trading forex without leverage.....

Forex markets move in very tiny tiny numbers, & trading the 4H & Dailies will make it even more miniscule, it's the leverage that makes it worth trading, so if someone doesn't want to use leverage then there's not much point in trading forex unless you have an account-size going into millions..........hayseed may be a rare exception to this.....

Instead, I'd suggest learning to use leverage on demo-accounts. If one has $1000 to invest in a live-account then just put it in a bank or whatever, & open a demo worth $1000, if you blow it, start another one with $1000, & then another one........until one is able to be consistently profitable for at least 6 months (may be a year for those trading Dailies) without massive massive drawdowns; & I'm talking about regular trading, not a few fluke trades!

Sometimes newcomers to forex, they start with the demo, see a trend & enter it, it moves in their favor & they think "Whoa! This is easy!" & then on the live-account, when the markets start to range, they keep entering hoping for the next big trend to start & their stops keep getting taken out & their account keep shrinking; but if one has done regular demo-trading with consistent profits without massive drawdowns for at least 6 months to a year then they can think that they have a system with an "edge" & that would be the point where they should go for a live-account; even then they should only start with a quarter or half of their investible funds & if they are still doing well after 3 to 6 months of live-trading then throw in rest of the investible funds.

It must be noted that the demos in this case must be traded as if one was trading live, one must take a serious approach to such demo-trading & feel happy/sad about demo's performance & not just think "it's just a demo", otherwise it'd be pointless.

People invest years of hardwork into becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, business professionals & what not, just so they could make good money, well, one can make WAY MORE than that on the markets so if one is serious about making money in this business & not just blow away their money & give up then one has to invest their blood, sweat & tears into this thing in order to achieve LONG-TERM success.

If you put in 6 months, a year or more into serious demo-trading, then either -
1) one will find out that they are not born to be a trader & there's no point in throwing money at forex (nothing wrong with that, not everyone is born to be a doctor, engineer or businessman, just move on, one needs to find what they are good at & move in that direction)
OR
2) they'll have developed a system of their own, a system with an "edge" that can safely be relied upon to generate decent profits based on mathematical probabilities.

Of course, markets are crazy & future is uncertain so it's always good to cash in some profits at regular intervals & put it somewhere else

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hey r4..... yep, your absolutely 100% right....... that's just about the size of it...... on 1000 we're talkin pennies......

but apply that crazy leverage to a 300k account and were talkin hundreds of dollars..... and once we've gone thru the 'learning process' you mentioned above, perhaps we could raise it as high as 10 to 1......

diallist once said 10:1 was his max...... so, relaitively speakin, using the diallist:hayseed ratio, my max would be 1:1.......

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you know what would really be funny..... if the 5% were all crazy and the 95% were sane.....h
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Yes, this wont make you a millionaire... but i have already achieved consistency in demo trading for about 3-4 months, now i am trying to adapt to live account. I will rise size if i feel comfortable with an obvious move of course.

Beginner live account traders should know that consistency and controlling emotions is important before risking more, which would lead to higher emotions and higher risks if losing.

And even if trading really well with high risk, it could still turn into a disaster if losing streaks add up... which are inevitable.

But OP hasn't mentioned anything about 300k, he's mentioned 1k..........I rest my case

What will make profitable and consistent in the long term is your ability to trade ... A higher leverage won't make more consistent your results.

Hi, I am a newbie here at Forex Factory. Based on my demo account with an initial credit of $5,000, I will say a risk reward ratio of 1:3. I can have 3 positions to enter the trade leveraging me, with a minimum of $1,400 each trade. What can you say about this? Will a 1 lot per intraday trading compensate me? My goal is to have a atleast a net profit of $800-$1000. Can I do this in a conservative way like a $1,000 deposit? Well I am a newbie after all but will gain knowledge because it is a learning process... Trading is like being an economist. :