How to calculate StopOut, if the broker expresses it in money, but not in percentage?

leon_17 2020.02.24 11:46

Hi, please, help to understand this issue.

Personally, I myself have not encountered such a situation yet, but it became interesting, because MQL4 seems to make it possible to determine what exactly means a stopout in money or in percent. With percentages, everything is clear and we need to follow the condition:

if(AccountInfoInteger(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_MODE)==ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_PERCENT)

{
 AccountEquity()/AccountMargin()*100<=AccountStopoutLevel()
}

But what comparison should be made if the level is set in money is not clear

 if(AccountInfoInteger(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_MODE)==ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_MONEY)

Tell me how to?

p.s. Sorry for my English, I hope I was able to correctly convey the essence of my question.

William Roeder 2020.02.24 14:38 #1

Stopout means your free margin went negative. See № 5

If you are worried about margin and leverage, you are not controlling your risk. Never risk more than a small percentage of your account, certainly less than 2% per trade, 6% total to the account. Risk depends on your initial stop loss, lot size, and the value of the pair. It does not depend on margin and leverage.

You place the stop where it needs to be — where the reason for the trade is no longer valid. E.g. trading a support bounce the stop goes below the support.
AccountBalance * percent/100 = RISK = OrderLots * (|OrderOpenPrice - OrderStopLoss| * DeltaPerLot + CommissionPerLot) (Note OOP-OSL includes the spread, and DeltaPerLot is usually around $10/pip but it takes account of the exchange rates of the pair vs. your account currency.)
Do NOT use TickValue by itself - DeltaPerLot and verify that MODE_TICKVALUE is returning a value in your deposit currency, as promised by the documentation, or whether it is returning a value in the instrument's base currency.
          MODE_TICKVALUE is not reliable on non-fx instruments with many brokers - MQL4 programming forum 2017.10.10
          Is there an universal solution for Tick value? - Currency Pairs - General - MQL5 programming forum 2018.02.11
          Lot value calculation off by a factor of 100 - MQL5 programming forum 2019.07.19
You must normalize lots properly and check against min and max.
You must also check FreeMargin to avoid stop out

Most pairs are worth about $10 per PIP. A $5 risk with a (very small) 5 PIP SL is $5/$10/5 or 0.1 Lots maximum.

Determining Pair Leverage Best Lot size with not enough money error

leon_17 2020.02.24 16:20 #2

@William Roeder, thanks for your reply!

In this case, I am only interested in paragraph 5.

Which code will be correct??

   if(AccountInfoInteger(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_MODE)==ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_MONEY)
     {
      // Stopout comes when:

      AccountFreeMargin() <= 0;

     }

   if(AccountInfoInteger(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_MODE)==ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_MONEY)
     {
      // Stopout comes when:

      AccountFreeMargin() <= AccountStopoutLevel();

     }

   if(AccountInfoInteger(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_MODE)==ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_MONEY)
     {
      // Stopout comes when:

      AccountEquity() <= AccountStopoutLevel();
     }

Did I understand correctly that the second option would be correct?

Stopout comes when: AccountFreeMargin() <= AccountStopoutLevel();

p.s. The terminal shows that free margin can be negative without a stopout

William Roeder

www.mql5.com

Trader's profile

how delete some record Simple money management fomula How to check if

Andriy Moraru 2025.03.01 19:18 #3

This is actually an interesting question. The official documentation is still unclear on this matter. So what does the ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_SO represent when we are in ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_MONEY?

Ryan L Johnson 2025.03.02 00:59 #4

Per Fernando, calculating margin is more nuanced:

Forum on trading, automated trading systems and testing trading strategies

Margin Calculation ?

Fernando Carreiro, 2022.05.19 13:51

Required Margin = Notional value * Trading Volume/ Leverage
Example: 1 lot EUR/USD at 1:500 Leverage: 100,000 EUR * 1/ 500 = 200 EUR

Example: 0.03 lot EUR/USD at 1:500 Leverage: 100,000 EUR * 0.03 / 500 = 6.00 EUR

Consider also using this instead:

MarketInfo( _Symbol, MODE_MARGINREQUIRED )

Also have a look at the following:

(Linked post continues well beyond this pocket pasted).

Margin Calculation ? Invalid Volume - Error Does Higher Leverage Mean

Andriy Moraru 2025.03.02 10:58 #5

Ryan L Johnson #:

Per Fernando, calculating margin is more nuanced:

(Linked post continues well beyond this pocket pasted).

Unfortunately, both you and @William Roeder misunderstand the question here. It has nothing to do with margin calculation. The question is about the stop-out level.

The stop-out level supports two modes in MetaTrader: percentage and currency.

When the stop-out level is in the percentage mode, everything is easy: you can check how far you are from being stopped out by comparing the current margin level (which is also in percentage) with the given stop-out level.

When the stop-out level is in the currency mode, it's not clear what is it be compared against. This isn't stated in the help files and multiple options are possible. Although my best guess is that it's compared against the free margin value, we cannot be certain about that without some official confirmation.

I hope this makes sense.

Question on working with F How to get the