Hi,

I am quite new to this forum and have some questions on Spread Betting calculations, I have been using Alpari for a few weeks now and am very used to working out my 2% risk there, now I have opened up a Demo MT4 Spread Bet account with Smart Live Markets and find it very hard to work out my 2% risk on a trade.

I chose 1:10 leverage, I am trading on the GBP/USD 15 Min charts, I can work out the stop loss and take profit limits by pips but is there an easy method to work out my 2% stake ?

Thanks,

Chiggy.

Hi chiggy,

Thats one of the reasons we created the Systems For Traders Trade Sizer - It can be downloaded free by anyone thats a member - Trade Sizer.

Thanks, I have some more newby questions:

I have already been using this, but I was unsure how to work out the most basic, lots on the spread betting platform, I know that on Alpari (non spreadbetting) I buy 0.25 lots and this gives me my 40 pips at 2% of my capital, I chose a margin of 1:1. With SLM i have a margin of 1:10, 10,000 demo account and it seems 5 lots = £5 stake which I worked out to be 2% from the spreadsheet. Are my calculations wrong ? I find this more confusing on the spread betting platform. Also am I wize using a small margin or should I use the full 1:100 (is there any benefit )and keep following my strict money management rules ?

Thanks,

Chiggy

Hi chiggy,

Spreadbetting very simple in determining "lot" size. Note - You are buying "lots" you are trading at xx.xx per PIP (for Forex).

Thus is you have a £10,000 account and wish to trade 2% risk that = £200 per trade.

If you have a 20 PIP Stop thats £10 per PIP (that's your "lot" size), if your stop is 50 PIPs thats £4 per PIP.

Hope that helps, any questions just post away.

Hi thanks,

I understand the pip value and that 2% risk = £200 but I can't understand on the spread betting MT4 platform how to place the trade to give me the £10 per pip value. Sorry if I am asking very basic questions but how would I enter this into my Spread Betting SLM MT4 trade screen, the fields I have available are : symbol with bet per 0.0001, volume, SL and TP( which I understand fine) where would I enter my £10 pip value ?

Also, I am currently using 1:10 Margin, should I be making use of the 1:100 margins on the spread betting platform or do you recommend against that ? Even though I am only risking 2% of my capital per trade.

Thanks again,

Chiggy.

Hi,

To us it sounds like you are not on the Spread betting platform. You should see SB at the end of the symbol, e.g. GBPUSDSB and on the drop down for sizing you should see the word "Volume", thats the £99.99 per PIP field. Suggest you contact SLM and have a discussion with them.

Also, we do not believe you can have a leveraged Spread bet account with them, we may be wrong.

Hi,

I will have a chat with SLM

Thanks again for your help.

This forum is a great resource!

Chiggy.

You are welcome, it becomes an even better resource if you report back your findings

Hi, it seems I have the correct account, its a spread bet account , I was told the volume is my stake, so a volume of 1 is £1 per pip.

It all makes more sense to me now.

Cheers,

Chiggy.

Thanks for reporting back, it did sound like you had a straight brokerage account but anyway, we got there, thanks again.