Minimum Lot, Leverage and the Account Size That Silently Changes a Strategy's Risk

Two traders can run the same EA with the same settings on the same symbol and get different risk. The difference is not the strategy — it is the account underneath it.

Percentage-risk sizing calculates a lot and then rounds it to the broker's step, and it can never go below the minimum lot. On a small balance the calculated size often falls under that floor, so the EA either trades the minimum — which may be several times your intended risk — or does not trade at all. Neither outcome matches the backtest.

The same 0.01 lot means very different money on gold, on an index and on a major currency pair. A balance that is comfortable for one symbol can be structurally over-leveraged for another, using identical settings.

Risk percentage governs how much you lose if the stop is hit; leverage and free margin govern whether the order can be opened at all. A test run at one leverage and a live account at another will not produce the same trade list, especially for systems that can hold several positions.

Hedging versus netting changes how simultaneous positions are handled. A system designed to hold more than one position at a time can behave differently — or refuse to work — on a netting account. Cent accounts solve the minimum-lot floor for small balances, at the cost of smaller absolute results.

Gold King's description lists its requirement plainly: a hedging account, leverage of 1:100 or higher, and $1,000 or more, or the equivalent on a cent account. We publish those requirements because a strategy tested at one account size and run at another is not the same strategy, no matter how identical the input parameters look.

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