Gold Leverage and Margin Trading Explanation and Examples

Definition of Trading Terms:

Margin required: This is the amount of money your broker requires from you to open a position. It is expressed in percentages. Equity: This is the total amount of capital you have in your Gold trading account.

Used margin: The amount of money in your trading account that has already been used up when buying a Gold contract, this Gold contract is the trade transaction that is displayed in the open positions. As a trader you cannot use this amount of money after opening a trade with it because you have already used it and it is not available to you - until when you close your open position.

In other words, because your broker has opened up a position for you using the capital that you have borrowed, you must maintain this used margin for trading as a security to allow you to continue using this leverage that the broker has given you.

Free margin: The amount of money in your trading account that you can use to open new positions. This is the amount of money in your account that has not yet been leveraged because you have not yet opened a transaction with this money - this margin is also very important for you as a trader or investor because it enables you to continue holding your open trades as will be explained below.

However, if you over use leverage, this free margin will drop below a certain percent at which your broker will have to close all your positions automatically, leaving you with a big loss. The broker at this point closes all your position because if your positions are left open the broker would lose the money you have borrowed from them.

This is why you should always make sure you have a lot of free margin. To do this never trade more than 5 percent of your trading account balance, in fact 2 percent is recommended.

Difference between Leverage Set by the Broker and Used Leverage

If the set leverage is 100:1, it means you can borrow up to 100 dollars for every dollar you have but you do not have to borrow all the 100 dollars for every dollar you have you can decide to borrow 50:1 or 20:1. In this case even though the leverage option set 100:1 your used leverage will be the 50:1 or 20:1 that you have borrowed to make a transaction.

Example:

You have 1200 dollars (Equity)

Leverage set 100:1

Leverage Used = Amount used /Equity

1 Contract - $120,000

If you buy one standard lot which is equal to 120,000 dollars you will have used

= 120,000/1200

= 100:1

If you buy one 0.5 lots which is equal to 60,000 dollars you will have used

= 60,000/1200

= 50:1

If you buy one 0.2 lots which is equal to 24,000 dollars you will have used

= 24,000/1200

= 20:1

If you buy one 0.1 lots which is equal to 12,000 dollars you will have used

= 12,000/1200

= 10:1

In these three cases you can see that even though the set leverage is 100:1 - The used is 100:1, 50:1, 20:1 and 10:1 depending on the size of lots traded.

So Why not just Choose 10:1 option as the Maximum Leverage? Because to keep within the proper risk management rules it is even recommended that investors use less than this?

This question may seem straight forward but it's not, because when you trade you use borrowed money known A.K.A. Leverage. When you borrow capital from anyone or a bank you must maintain a security or collateral to acquire a loan, even if the security is based on monthly deduction from your salary, the same thing with Gold Trading and Online Trading.

In online trading the security is known as margin- your deposit. This is the capital you deposit with your broker.

This is calculated in real time as you trade. To keep your borrowed money you must maintain what is known as the required capital (your deposit). Now if Your Leverage is 100:1

When trading - if you have $1,200 and use option 100:1 and buy 1 standard lot for $120,000 your margin on this transaction is the $1200 dollars in your account, this is the money that you will lose is your open transaction goes against you the other $118,800 that is borrowed from your broker, they will close the open transactions automatically once your $1,200 has been taken by the market.

But this is if your broker has set 0% Margin Call Requirement before closing your trades automatically.

For 20% Margin Call requirement before closing your trades automatically, then your transactions will be closed once your balance gets to $240 for 50% Margin Call requirement of this level before closing your trades automatically, then your transactions will be closed once your balance gets to $600.

If they set 100% Margin Call requirement of this level before closing your open positions automatically, then your trade will be closed once your balance gets to $1,200: Meaning the trade will close out as soon as you execute it because even if you pay 10 pip spread your account balance will get to $1,190 and the needed percentage is 100% i.e. 1,200 dollars, therefore your orders will immediately get closed by margin call.

Most brokers do not set 100% Margin Call requirement, but there are those that set 100% Margin Call level and these are not suitable for you at all, choose those set 50% or 20% margin requirements, in fact, those that set at 20% are the best because the likely hood them closing out your trade is reduced as shown in the examples above.

To know about the margin level that you will have used - these are calculated by your platform automatically - the MetaTrader 4 Platform will display this as "Margin Requirement", this will be displayed as a percentage the higher the percentage the less likely your trades are to get closed.

For Example if

Using leverage 100:1

If leverage is 100:1 and you transact 1 Mini Lot, equal to $12,000

$12,000 dollars (mini lot) divide by 100:1; your used capital is $120

Calculation:

= Capital Used * Percentage (100)

= $1,200/$120 * Percentage (100)

Margin Requirement = 1000 %

Investor has 980% above the required amount (because margin call level is 20%)

Using 10:1

If leverage is 10:1 and you transact 1 Mini Lot, equal to $12,000

$12,000 dollars (mini lot) divide by 10:1; your used capital is $1200

Calculation:

= Capital Used * Percentage (100)

= $1,200/$1200 * Percentage (100)

Margin Requirement = 100 %

Investor has 80% above the required amount (because margin call level is 20%)

Because when a trader has a uses higher leverage - it means that they have more percentage above what is required (A.K.A. More "Free Margin") their open transactions are less likely to get closed by a margin call as explained above. This is the reason why investors will choose the option 100:1 for their trading account but according to their risk management rules, they will not trade above 5:1.

These Margin levels explained above are shown on the MetaTrader 4 platform and traders can find them as shown below while trading Gold with the MetaTrader 4 platform.