Leverage & margin calculator How much margin a position ties up — and how little it takes to wipe it
Leverage cuts both ways: it lets a small deposit control a large position, and it lets a small move against you erase that deposit. Put in the position’s size and your leverage, and this tool shows the margin the position requires — and the adverse move that would wipe that margin out.
Enter a positive position size and leverage.
How to use it
Enter the notional — the full value of the position you want to open — and the leverage your broker gives you (30 means 1:30). The tool divides one by the other to show the margin the position locks up, and then reads off the percentage move against you that would swallow exactly that margin. Change the leverage and watch both figures shift.
The bigger the leverage, the smaller the move that empties it
This is the part the headline “up to 1:500” never spells out. At 1:30, a move of about 3.3% against you empties the margin. At 1:100 it takes roughly 1%. At 1:500, a fifth of a percent will do it. Higher leverage doesn’t just magnify the upside — it shrinks the distance between you and a blown position.
What the result does and doesn’t mean
This is illustrative arithmetic on the two numbers you type. It holds no live prices and makes no promises about any trade. Depending on the product and your jurisdiction, losses can exceed the margin you put up — even the whole deposit — and fees, overnight charges and slippage all sit on top of the bare figures here. Nothing on this page is advice to use leverage.
Leveraged trading can lose money faster than almost anything else, and in some products and places you can lose more than you deposit. Treat the “adverse move” figure as a floor, not a limit — and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.
The formula, in plain words
Two small sums. The margin is the notional divided by the leverage: at 1:30, you post one-thirtieth of the position’s value to hold it. The “adverse move that wipes the margin” is the flip side — one divided by the leverage, read as a percentage. Because your margin is that same fraction of the position, a move of exactly that size against you erases it. Higher leverage shrinks the margin and, by the same arithmetic, shrinks the move it takes to lose it. The two numbers are one relationship seen from both ends.
A worked example
Open a 10,000 notional position at 1:30. The margin is 10,000 ÷ 30, about 333.33, and the wipeout move is 1 ÷ 30, roughly 3.33% against you. Raise the leverage to 1:100 on the same position and the margin falls to 100.00 — but now only a 1% move empties it. Push to 1:500 and you tie up just 20.00, while a move of 0.20% does the damage: on a major pair that can be a single busy minute. The margin looks more “efficient” at every step, and the cushion under you gets thinner at exactly the same rate. That is the trade the headline leverage number never spells out.
When this number matters — and when it doesn’t
The margin figure matters for one thing and one thing only: it is not a measure of the risk. Two accounts can post the same margin and face wildly different danger depending on the position behind it. The number that actually matters is the wipeout move, because it tells you how little has to go wrong. Read it as a warning, not a stop level — it’s where the bare margin is gone, but real losses can run further. Depending on the product and your jurisdiction, you can lose more than you deposited, and fees, overnight charges and slippage all sit on top of these bare figures. This is illustrative arithmetic on two inputs; it holds no live price and is not advice to use leverage. If the comfortable-looking margin is what draws you to a larger position, that is precisely the moment to size down.
Common mistakes
- Reading a small margin as small risk — the low deposit is the danger, not the reassurance.
- Chasing the highest leverage on offer, which shrinks the adverse move that wipes you out to a fraction of a percent.
- Treating the wipeout figure as a hard floor, when slippage and gaps can push the real loss past it.
- Assuming losses stop at the margin posted — in some products and places they can exceed the whole deposit.
If you’re weighing up Binance, its code gets you up to 20% off trading fees*. Leverage magnifies losses as well as gains, so size it carefully and check its live margin rules first — and never share your password, 2FA code or recovery phrase.
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