Leverage Calculator
Effective leverage is total exposure divided by equity, and it decides how large a move against you the account can survive. Enter your position value and equity to see both, plus what a 1% move is worth.
Effective leverage versus offered leverage
The number in your broker's marketing — 30:1, 100:1, 500:1 — is the maximum they permit. It tells you nothing about what you are actually using. Effective leverage is total exposure divided by equity, and it is the only figure that describes your real position.
A trader with a 500:1 account holding $20,000 of exposure on $10,000 of equity is at 2:1. A trader with a 30:1 account holding $290,000 on $10,000 is at 29:1 and in far more danger. The offered number is a permission; the effective number is a fact.
The move-to-zero line is the one to read
At 5:1, a 20% adverse move ends the account. At 20:1 it takes 5%. At 100:1, 1%. Currency majors move 0.5–1% on an ordinary day and several percent on a bad one; individual equities gap 10% on earnings routinely. Set the leverage number against how far your instrument actually moves and the safe range becomes obvious very quickly.
The calculator flags anything above 10:1, not because 10 is a magic threshold, but because beyond it a single ordinary session can plausibly take out the account.
Leverage across positions is cumulative
Five positions at 4:1 each is 20:1 on the account, and if they are correlated — five long tech names, five short dollar pairs — they behave as one position with 20:1 leverage. Traders who size each trade conservatively and hold ten of them at once frequently have no idea what their aggregate exposure is. Add up the notional and put the total in the field above.
What leverage does not change
Your risk on a stopped trade. That is set by position size and stop distance, and nothing else. Leverage determines how much margin is held and how much rope you have to hang yourself with — see the margin calculator — but a well-sized position with a stop risks the same amount at 500:1 as at 2:1.
What leverage does at scale
ESMA capped retail CFD leverage in 2018 after national analyses found 74–89% of retail accounts lost money, with average losses of €1,600 to €29,000.[1] The cap was a regulator concluding that the multiplier, not the market, was the variable.
The number is the easy part
Everything above is arithmetic, and anyone opening this page gets the same answer. What no calculator can settle is whether you took the trade on these terms, or are describing — afterwards — the version of it that worked out.
That is what a trade recorder is for: the trade committed before it resolves, timestamped and sealed on the spot, on a Merkle-anchored log a stranger can check without kappi's cooperation. The plan you typed here stops being a plan you remember having. $15/month, no free tier.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate effective leverage?
Divide total position value by account equity. $50,000 of exposure on $10,000 of equity is 5:1.
What move would wipe out my account?
100 divided by your effective leverage, as a percentage. At 20:1 a 5% adverse move takes the account to zero, ignoring any stop or forced close.
Is my broker's advertised leverage my actual leverage?
No. That is the maximum permitted. Effective leverage depends entirely on how much exposure you actually hold against your equity.
Does leverage across multiple positions add up?
Yes, and correlated positions compound it. Five long positions in the same sector at 4:1 each behave much like one position at 20:1.