Trading with Fixed lots instead

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Kind of an unusual thing to want to do i know, I am going to try an experiment and I was just wondering if there is any common "conventions" out there when it comes to trading with fixed lots compared to you're account balance?

I recall years ago hearing something along the lines of "for every $1,000 in your account you can trade 0.04 lots" for example (i think it was around there, im sure it's off a bit). Has anyone heard of a rule of thumb in this regard someone could use?


Thanks!

 

Just because your car can go 150 MPH doesn't mean you should. Just because you have a lot of margin, doesn't mean you should use it. Control your risk.

Risk depends on your initial stop loss, lot size, and the value of the symbol. It does not depend on margin or leverage. No SL means you have infinite risk (on leveraged symbols). Never risk more than a small percentage of your trading funds, certainly less than 2% per trade, 6% account total.

  1. You place the stop where it needs to be — where the reason for the trade is no longer valid.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. Then you compute your lot size.

  2. 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.)

  3. 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)
              Is there an universal solution for Tick value? - Currency Pairs - General - MQL5 programming forum (2018)
              Lot value calculation off by a factor of 100 - MQL5 programming forum (2019)

  4. You must normalize lots properly and check against min and max.

  5. You must also check Free Margin to avoid stop out

  6. For MT5, see 'Money Fixed Risk' - MQL5 Code Base (2017)

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.

 
RustyKanuck:

Kind of an unusual thing to want to do i know, I am going to try an experiment and I was just wondering if there is any common "conventions" out there when it comes to trading with fixed lots compared to you're account balance?

I recall years ago hearing something along the lines of "for every $1,000 in your account you can trade 0.04 lots" for example (i think it was around there, im sure it's off a bit). Has anyone heard of a rule of thumb in this regard someone could use?


Thanks!


let me first ask two questions and then try to open your mind

1. Do you know how to trade professionally?
2. Are you capable of managing a position dexstrously after the position is open?


If you answered yes to both of those, you can use any lot size you feel like using, as long as you know the potential impact of PnL with that lot size.

Imagine a trader who has a 10% win rate using a moderate to large lot size? This is not going to go down well compared to a professional trader using the same lot size.

Different people have different risk appetites. The general rule is to never risk more than 10% of the account

 
RustyKanuck:

Kind of an unusual thing to want to do i know, I am going to try an experiment and I was just wondering if there is any common "conventions" out there when it comes to trading with fixed lots compared to you're account balance?

I recall years ago hearing something along the lines of "for every $1,000 in your account you can trade 0.04 lots" for example (i think it was around there, im sure it's off a bit). Has anyone heard of a rule of thumb in this regard someone could use?


Thanks!

How positive is the setup, how much are you willing to if you're not correct? That's what you need to yourself before you enter any trade then deciding on the lot size will easy. in that account i would personally trade 0.1 lots on all trades

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