Risk calculator
Lot size, stop distance and account size in, money at risk out. It also shows the worst case when several trades are open together, or when a grid keeps adding trades as price goes against it. The sums are the ones from lesson 1.4, and the course rule is to risk no more than 1% of the account on a trade.
What it shows, and what it does not
- It shows losses and exposure only. It never shows a profit, a target or a trade to take.
- US-dollar-quoted pairs and XAUUSD, with the account in US dollars. Other symbols say "not supported" rather than guess an exchange rate.
- Price is assumed to reach the stop exactly. Gaps, slippage, spread and swap can make a real loss bigger.
Education only. Trading carries risk, and most retail CFD accounts lose money. Pipstone Learn teaches concepts and never gives trading signals.
US$10 a pip on 1.00 lot, account in US dollars.
The course rule is 1%.
Worst case
- Lot size (rounded down)
- 0.04
- Exact size before rounding
- 0.0400 lot
- Loss if the stop is hit
- US$10.00
- Share of the account
- 1%
- Move that would wipe the account
- 2,500 pips
Trade 0.04 lot. The stop then risks US$10.00, 1% of the account, exactly the 1% rule.
Losses and exposure only. No gaps, slippage, spread or swap included.
Pipstone Teaching EA defaults
Version 1.00. The preset fills one trade on EURUSD at 1% risk with a 10-pip stop, the tightest the EA uses at its default settings (its stop is ATR × 2, kept between 10 and 100 pips), and caps the size at 0.1 lot. The EA opens at most 1 trade at a time. Out-of-range values are clamped, not refused:
- Risk per trade
- Default 1 % of balance · allowed 0.1–2
- Capped at 2% per trade for a learning tool; 0 would mean no trading at all.
- Maximum lot size
- Default 0.1 lots · allowed 0.01–1
- Learn cap of 1.0 lot; it can only make trades smaller.
- ATR multiplier for stop
- Default 2 x ATR · allowed 0.5–5
- Below 0.5 ATR the stop sits inside one bar's normal range; above 5 it is effectively no stop.
- Minimum stop
- Default 10 pips · allowed 5–200
- At least 5 pips so the stop is not lost inside the spread. Max stop is raised to match if it is lower.
- Maximum stop
- Default 100 pips · allowed 10–500
- Never below the minimum stop; 500 pips is far wider than any sensible stop for this lesson.
- Daily loss stop
- Default 3 % of day-start balance · allowed 1–10
- 1-10%. There is no value that turns this stop off.
- Max trades per day
- Default 3 trades · allowed 1–10
- At least 1, at most 10, so it can never trade without a count limit.
Worst case, from the EA's card
All limits are PER CHART (magic number + symbol). Per trade about RiskPercent of balance plus slippage and gaps; per chart per server day about MaxDailyLossPct plus slippage. N charts running the EA can lose about N x MaxDailyLossPct in one day: run it on ONE chart. A position carried over from yesterday counts its whole floating P/L against today's limit. Repeated small losses are the realistic failure.
- Educational tool. Not financial advice.
- The entry rule has no proven edge. It has not been tested by the Pipstone lab and can lose money.
- Test in the Strategy Tester and on a demo account first.
- Past results in the Strategy Tester do not predict future results.