What is 500 1 leverage forex?

Trading Forex with leverage has existed almost as long as online trading has existed. Many traders are keen to use leverage whilst others prefer to avoid it. Most CFD brokers these days provide leverage to varying degrees. This article will explore how leverage works and what one might expect when using it in investing.

How are leverage or margin requirement represented?

Leverage in forex is most commonly represented as a ratio. For example, 1:5 means the leverage is ‘one to five’. 1:10 means the leverage is ‘one to ten’. Can also be expressed as a decimal. For example, 1:5 can be written as 0.2 and 1:10 as 0.1. Leverage is also known as ‘margin requirement’ since it determines how much margin is required to open a trade.

How does leverage work?

There are a few ways to explain how leverage works but the simplest way to think of it is as the ability to open a trade using a fraction of the total amount required. This fractional amount is represented by the numbers on either side of the ratio.

Imagine a broker offers leverage of 5:1. That would mean traders only need 1/5  of the usual amount (or margin) required to open the trade. Or put another way, requiring only $1 for every $5. So, a position usually requiring $1,000 could instead be opened using margin of only $200. A trade usually requiring $5,000 could instead be opened with only $1000.

Leverage does not have to be 5:1, it could be higher or lower. For example, 100:1 leverage means $1 is required for every $100. So, in the case of a $1,000 trade, $10 would be the margin requirement. As leverage decreases the margin requirement increases and vice versa. 1:1 leverage means you pay the full amount (or equivalently, is means you are investing without leverage).

What are the uses and what are the risks of trading?

The usefulness of trading forex with leverage is straightforward to understand. Also increases the potential volume of trades one can place by decreasing the amount required to place them. This can potentially translate to gaining the same by investing less or gaining more by investing the same.

The downside is that with the potential for amplified gains comes the same potential for amplified losses. A consequence of investing larger lot sizes is larger equity swings that can go both ways. This is not a trick, but just a natural by-product of dealing with larger sums. The exact same result would occur when trading the same lot size without the use of leverage. However, novice traders who do not make preliminary calculations are often caught off guard by the steepness of the swings.

Even the effect leverage has on spread can take traders by surprise. They find themselves at an unexpectedly larger loss once the trade is placed. But again, this is only a natural consequence of increasing lot sizes. Most novice forex traders are usually stuck in the mindset of viewing trades only in terms of margin requirements rather than as their full lot values.

What safeguards can be used when trading with leverage?

Stop-losses are an important risk management tool in trading, and even more so when trading with leverage. Since losses can occur more rapidly when trading larger lots, it is important to set limits on how much one is willing to lose on a trade.

Brokers who offer negative balance protection essentially provide an inbuilt stop-loss at the point of zero balance, to prevent traders from going into debt. Trading with brokers who offer negative balance protection is another sensible precaution one can take when trading with high leverage.

Is trading inherently risky?

Forex trading with leverage can be risky but it doesn’t have to be any more so than trading without it. For example, if an account is funded adequately enough to open 10 lots without needing leverage, then using the same account to open 10 lots aided by leverage is no different. 10 lots are 10 lots, and each pip movement impacts the margin level (the ratio of margin used to total account equity) by the same amount. In this case, the only difference is that the trader has used leverage to minimise the margin required to open the same position size.

The danger begins when the trader is so keen to minimise the margin requirement to open as large a position as possible, that they neglect the health of their margin level. This is how entire accounts are lost.

For example, using 500:1 leverage to trade a lot size 500 times larger than the account balance can afford on a single position is an inadvisable strategy. The fate of the entire account is placed on the outcome of a single trade, with any small negative swing risking a wipeout of the balance.

Imagine an account balance is €200 and a trader decides to open 1 lot of EURUSD. Using 500:1 leverage, the margin requirement for this is exactly €200, so they place the entire balance on a single trade. Each pip movement on 1 lot of EURUSD equals a loss or gain of $10. Considering that EURUSD moves between 70-100 pips daily on average, it’s easy to understand that just a fraction of this going the wrong way would be enough to wipe out the account.

Leverage can also be used for portfolio diversification. Imagine the same trader instead of opening 1 lot of a single asset opens 100 micro-lots of varying assets. In both cases, 1 lot total is opened and the entire account balance is at risk. However, in the second case, the risk is widely spread out. Losing trades can be offset by winning trades – not all eggs are in the same basket.

To summarise, using leverage allows for trading more volume than an account can theoretically afford. Traders can use this feature either to increase the number of possible small trades or increase the size of a few large ones. Proper risk management is not a question of whether or not leverage is used but whether it is used responsibly. Leverage is a tool which, like any, can be applied or misapplied to the trader’s benefit or detriment.

Leverage and negative balance protection with IronFX

IronFX is an established global forex broker offering options for trading with leverage alongside negative balance protection. This means you can trade knowing you will never lose more than you choose to deposit.

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