Leverage - I *thought* I understood it!

I hate to ask this. I thought I had more forex knowledge than this. But I'd rather ask here and look like the noob I am than lose a ton of cash. Besides, maybe some other noobs can learn along with me...

Leverage. I don't get it. 400:1, 200:1, etc, etc. Not like my stock brokerage account where everyone gets the same and its only a fraction of your account balance, not MULTIPLES of your account balance like in forex.

If I have a mini account with $1000 account balance and I open a trade for 1 lot in a USD pair with a 100 pip stop loss, the most I can lose is $100, right? 10% right? Not $40,000. Right? Assuming that's right, is that 1:1 leverage? And if my trade goes up 20 pips I'm up 20%, right?

But i don't understand 400:1 (or any other xx:1). 400:1 sounds like I could trade 400 lots on $1000. That just doesn't sound right.

Can someone give real examples of a mini account with $1000 available equity?

Thank you in advance and feel free to constructively criticize me for having a $1000 mini account instead of a $1000 micro account. THANKS!

Let's say you are leveraged at 200:1. One mini lot ($10,000) will cost you $50 of liquidity in your account. $50 x 200 = 10,000. Assuming your trading EUR/USD, the value of each pip is $1. A 100 pip loss is a $100 loss. A 20 pip gain is $20.
With a 200:1 account with $1000 cold hard cash you will have $200,000 margin available. A 100 pip loss will be $100 of real money or 10 per cent of your account, provided you are trading 1 lot. A 20 pip gain will be $20 or a 2 per cent gain on your account.
If you are on the right side of the trade your available margin goes up. Wrong side, your available margin goes down. If you over extend yourself and your available margin no longer covers the positions you have open, your broker will close your positions to cover and it will always happen at the worst possible price.
As for a $1000 mini account, it's not impossible. The advantage of a miro would be that you could use some more advanced strategies of scaling in and out of trades. A micro would allow a little more creativity in your money management.
Your broker's site should have a more detailed explanation of leverage.
Also the pip value of different currency pairs is not equal. If the USD is the counter currency ( the one on the right of the pair e.g. EUR/USD) a pip on a mini lot will be worth one dollar.

Happy Trading

Leverage is to enable you to buy big lots with small money.
With 400:1 .. you can buy 4 lots (not 400 lots) with $1000.
The way I use leverage is
1) define how much $$ I'm willing to lose if my SL got hit . Let's say the SL is 100 pips (valued $1000).
2) Maximize the lots that I can buy with that $1k risk at 100 pips SL (EURUSD). Amount of lots that I should buy is
$1000/100 pips/0.0001 dollar= 100000 units = 1 lot.
Required leverage = 1:100.

Contract Size...
1 Lot = 100,000.00 Bemacs
Bemacs trade curently at 4.6245

Your Leverage = 400:1 which means to get control of 1 Lot of Bemacs will cost you 100,000/400 = 250.00

Bemacs move from 4.6245 to 4.6285 so you gained 0.0040/Bemac.
Thing is, you control 100,000 Bemacs.
100,000*0.0001= $ 10.00
100,000*0.0040= $400.00
& your Anti was only $250.00

Leverage my friend. Leverage. Using other peoples money to grow your own