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The size is arithmetic, and arithmetic is portable

Installing something is a choice about the surface you work on. The three figures that produce a position size are not stored on that surface: they live in your notes, and they give the same answer on any of them. That is why the volume can be settled before a single file has finished downloading.

Doing the arithmetic first turns the order ticket into data entry rather than a decision. The moment the ticket is open the price is moving, and a figure worked out under a moving price is a figure argued upward. Written down beforehand, it is simply copied across.

It also means the platform comparison and the sizing question never meet. Which application charts better, which one starts faster, which one you happen to have open — none of that changes the number of lots the loss budget allows.

Three inputs, in the order they are decided

First the loss budget: a cash amount in the currency the account is denominated in, chosen before the instrument is even named. Fixing it in cash is what makes two unrelated ideas comparable — the same budget, two different volumes.

Second the invalidation distance: the level at which the reason for the trade no longer holds, measured from the intended entry in the units that instrument is quoted in. The level belongs to the idea, so this figure is read off the chart, not negotiated.

Third the value of one unit of that distance on one lot. This one is a property of the contract rather than of your idea, identical for every client holding that instrument, and it is the reason an identical distance turns into a different volume from one instrument to the next.

Rounding goes down, never up

The division rarely lands on a volume the account can actually accept. Volumes are entered in multiples of a step, so the raw figure has to be moved to the nearest multiple — and the direction of that move is not a matter of taste. Rounding up puts the position above the budget by construction, before the market has done anything at all.

Rounding down leaves the realised risk slightly under the budget. That is the acceptable direction of error: the shortfall is known in advance, it is small, and it never grows.

When the rounded figure falls below the smallest volume the account allows, the answer is no position. Shrinking the invalidation distance until a permitted volume appears looks like a fix and is not one — it moves the level away from the idea to satisfy the arithmetic, which is the arithmetic running backwards.

When the figure has to be worked out again

Any change to the invalidation distance changes the volume, and it changes it the other way: a level placed further away means fewer lots for the same budget, a level placed closer means more. Moving the level and keeping the size is how a budget is quietly doubled.

Changing the budget scales the volume in the same proportion. Halve the amount you are prepared to lose and the volume halves with it; nothing else in the calculation moves.

Switching instruments changes what a unit of distance is worth, so the volume changes even when the budget and the distance are written down identically. Carrying a habitual lot size from one instrument to another is the most common way a carefully chosen budget stops meaning anything.

Working out the size before the platform is even open

1. Write down the cash amount you accept to lose on this idea, in the currency the account is denominated in.
2. Mark the price level that would make the idea wrong, and measure the distance from your intended entry to it in the units the instrument is quoted in.
3. Look up what one unit of that distance is worth on one lot of that instrument — a contract property, the same for everyone trading it.
4. Multiply the distance by that per-unit value: this is what one full lot would lose if the level is reached.
5. Divide the loss budget by that product. The result is the volume in lots, still unrounded.
6. Round the volume down to the step your account accepts. Never up.
7. If the rounded volume is below the smallest volume allowed, the idea does not fit the budget — leave it rather than move the level.

Keep the three figures together in one note. When the level moves, only one line of it is recalculated, and the volume follows.

What each input does to the volume

Only the first row is a decision of yours. Every other row is read off the chart or off the contract, and the volume follows from all four.

Rounding the raw figure to a volume the account accepts

The figures in this table illustrate the rounding rule only. The volume step and the smallest permitted volume are set by the account type, not by this page.

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