07 March, 2008
Besides increasing the strength of your losses, leverage also has another way of killing you. It’s a much slower kind of death, though, kind of like being continually occurring open to view to high levels of radiation. Most traders don’t see it coming till they are dead.
This killer I’m talking about is the combined transfer cost of using high
leverage
Not only has the leverage increased the strength of your
losses, it also increasing the strength of your transaction costs as a
percentage of your account.
If you are losing in trades , your balance will shrinks and as your balance
shrinks, your leverage increases. As your leverage increases, your transaction
costs will eats away faster at the little money you have left. It’s a silence
slow death we are talking about here.
The more your leverage, the more your transaction cost as a percentage of
your balance.
If you have a mini account, and open a trade with a 5 pip spread, which equals
$5 transaction cost, look at how the relative value of your transaction costs
increases with more leverage.
Cost as % MR Leverage Margin Required (MR)
|
Cost as % MR |
Leverage |
Margin Required (MR) |
|
.05% |
1:1 |
$10,000 |
|
.10% |
3:1 |
$3,300 |
|
.25% |
5:1 |
$2,000 |
|
.5% |
10:1 |
$1,000 |
|
1% |
20:1 |
$500 |
|
1.5% |
33:1 |
$330 |
|
2.5% |
50:1 |
$200 |
|
5% |
100:1 |
$100 |
|
10% |
200:1 |
$50 |
Now that you’ve learned how leverage can enlarge your profits and losses, and
also your transaction costs.
Leverage doesn’t equal margin. How many times you can lever your account is the
Leverage. How maximum you are allowed to lever is totally depending on your
margin requirement
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