What leverage are you using in your trading?

[jacpin2002]

Hi everyone! I wanted to put this question out to the masses to get a feel of what leverage levels everyone is working with. I currently have 1:100 in both my live and demo account. However, I am thinking of going to 1:500. Of course, I would do this is in demo to see how things pan out before I do anything live. I’m thinking of doing this because of using so many EAs. I currently have 83 EAs running in demo right now (after I had to do some cleanup) and I feel like I need to have my available margin higher. Not that I feel like I am in trouble for blowing up the account. I’m just more confident with the use of the EAs to say that I don’t need to put as much of my own capital at risk anymore in a 1:100 leverage and do better (and maybe breathe easier) with a 1:500 leverage. Rest assure that I am not changing my lot size, meaning that over 10 EAs the lot size 0.01 until I get to 10k in my account.
What are your thoughts?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Jacpin,

recently in Europe there were new regulation changes, and most of the regulated broker had to lower the offered leverage. Imagine how much less they will benefit. Most of them fired many people because of that.

Simply, when higher leverage is used, more people lose money( I am talking about the average “trader” who did not go over even one trading course).

So most of the broker has maximum of 1:50 now…

No doubt you will have smart money management, so trading with higher leverage wont be an issue with you.

Kind regards,

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I use 1:100 and I feel it is just fine for me.

Jacpin, if you are trading with 0.01, you should not have issues with 1:100 leverage if your account is above or around 1k at least?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I am 1:500 leverage and for me is just fine, as Petko says with good money management should be all fine

[jacpin2002]

@Petko-That is interesting. I didn’t know that they scaled back on the leverage amounts.

@Haliffa-You’re right. I’m not having any issues with the current 1:100 leverage amount. I’m just always thinking of ways to manage my capital in both it’s use for profit and risk. If I can be more profitable with a higher leverage while still maintaining my current success in profits, then it would be smarter to go with the higher leverage. As I could still make the same profit now, with less trades and thereby less overall risk being in the market. Just throwing out ideas right now to better situate myself for the new year.

@Chris-So true. Good money management is key. I think I might increase my demo to 1:500 during the first week of January to see how that works out for me.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Jacpin, Yes, they did which is not a bad thing. brokers will benefit less, and traders will lose less.

Anyway I am talking here about the traders that have no idea what they are doing(90%), no education, no courses, no EAs, nothing.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello, you are absolutely right, Jacpin. The best thing would be to test a Demo account with higher leverage, and you can do it 100% same as your live account. This way you will see what will be the different. basically as Petko said, there will be no difference in the performance, but you will see more free margin to trade with.

Higher leverage for us, the algo traders, will be useful if we trade many EAs in small account. I did not see a need to higher the leverage, because I trade small number of EAs on relatively big account(according to me).

[John Michael]

It is all personal choice. It depends on the capital, number of EAs, experience. But Haliffa is correct, always on a Demo first.

Kind regards,

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I learned this the hard way :)

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I am more conservative on the leverage and I go with 1:20.  I think we should not be greedy having a lot of profits. Additional income is what I am looking for.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I agree with you John, Having smaller leverage is a tool to avoid greed. Anyway if you have good money management, you can trade with bigger leverage.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I use 1:50 for my manual trading, and I use 1:100 for the Expert Advisors. The margin is not a problem when we trade with many EAs since we buy and sell in the same time.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

You are right. Bob. When the EAs buy an sell in the account the margin is not an issue. However, there are some brokers that sum the opened trades even they are long and short. Beginner traders should be careful with that.

[dommech]

I’m using 1:500 with multiple 200-500 accounts

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Quite interesting, Dommech!

I am following similar strategy my self, as I test all the EAs from the different courses. And to avoid mixing it all, I put on different accounts.

Cheers!

[dommech]

Nice Petko, a bit off topic but what are your intentions with multiple accounts?

Mine is mostly spreading the risk over a couple of accounts and as soon as they are 100% ROI i will Compound the returns with another small account and more EA’s and let the old one run as printing machines until they self destruct (or I change EA’s)

This way I can have a Portfolio spread over multiple accounts, It is all about ROI anyway. :-)

I thought that running 10EA’s on a 1:500 200usd account would be too much but it looks good so far.

I’m Testing this theory now on Demo and it looks promising.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Dommech,

What you say makes sense, but I would add one thing here – take profits every month!

It is very important in trading to take your profits. I know everyone wants to build huge account(in your case many small accounts with EAs trading inside) BUT you should withdraw some profits at the end of the month or every 3rd month. Many people trade, and they are greedy to make it more and more, so at the end of the day they might have huge accounts but they do not enjoy it.

The joy intrading is when you see profits in the account history, I know that, but the cherry on the top of the ice cream is when you spend the profits for something…vocation, presents for the favorite people, dos’t matter. This is why we do it.

So an example strategy is to withdraw at the end of the month 20% of your profit from the past month. The rest you can use for more trading..

What I wanted to say is that it is great to increase the accounts and the balance, but do not forget to actually use these profits.

Now, regarding the system. I simply diversify the risk, and because I use different systems, trading portfolios, different currency pairs, I prefer to keep each one on different account to monitor it easier.

Your system sound really good! I will be happy if you keep us informed how it goes. Sharing some screenshots, results will be useful for everyone.

Cheers,

[dommech]

Thank you for the information Petko! My thoughts were to withdraw 50% of the monthly profits from every account that is break even (100%ROI)

I will start a Journal here very soon on my findings and so other people can pick what they want to use or add to so we can make it even better.

Overall I think my money works harder when using 1:500 leverage and multiple accounts

 

Cheers!

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Yes, if you are about to use small accounts it is good to use 1:500, but always with a smart lot traded :)

Please, make it clear what you mean by withdraw 50% of every account that is break even?

[dommech]

What do you men with “smart lot traded? :-) I Use 0.01 lots

 

By Break even I mean If i start up with a 200usd account and at 400usd I would withdraw 200 to make it Break even (Risk free) Later I would withdraw 50% monthly from that account

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Dommech,

Glad to hear from you again. Yes, I mean to trade with small lots :) You are doing great job!

Cheers,

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Dommech, I think Petko asked you because as you know Break Even is when we put the SL on the entry level.

When you increase 200USD account to 400USD, you can bravely say that you Doubled your account or you Made 100%!

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Haliffa,

yes you are talking from the trading point of view. When we talk about profit in the accounts we can say it is kind of break even, so we are not risking anymore the initial capital, but you are very right that this is 100% profit.

Actually Dommech, that is a dream profit for many traders.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello all,

does someone knows a broker who allows 1:1 leverage. I have some saved money and just want to change the currency, and keep it in different currency.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Viktor,

I do not think that the Forex brokers will be suitable for what you need. It is better just to exchange the currency in the bank. This way you will not pay swaps, even you find such a broker with 1:1 leverage. Personally I have not heard of one. The brokers want you to trade, so they can benefit the spread and the swap.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hi Viktor,

yes, if you want to keep your savings in any currency better use the bank because brokers will always charge you.

The idea in trading is that we exchange and take profits quickly, anyway if holding the positions long time, the swap will eliminate the profits.

[thyagomendes]

I’m using 1:200.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Thyago,

the most important is the risk management you follow. I am a fan of using high leverage with smart risk management.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Me too, Petko! If a trader uses small leverage but puts all the money into trades, that is still very risky.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

You are right. The problem is many people calculate the risk in a wrong way

It is not how much from our account we trade with. It is how much we risk.

You can place 50% of the account but if you have a very small SL you might be risking just 5-10% of the account.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Petko,

this is very right, but even I had some experience before coming to the Academy, I did not realize it. You explained it in one of the courses and it got clear to me.

The leverage provided by the brokers is their way to make your greed explode, which burns the account. That is why when using leverage a very strict risk money management should be there.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Yes, Haliffa

as we discussed somewhere in the forum, after the recent restrictions for the brokers in Europe to keep lower leverage, they started to profit less because fewer people lose their trading account.

[Desita]

I still do not understand how is the leverage connected to the EAs we use, or it is not?

[jacpin2002]

@Desita-I believe Petko had mentioned to me that it is not connected to the EAs. I honestly did not see a difference when I changed the leverage setting in EA Studio. But I’ll let Petko confirm.

[Thapelo]

When you use higher leverage you can trade bigger number of EAs or bigger lots. But the leverage has nothing to do with the performance of the Experts.

[m3ndshok3r]

Hello, I trade on the cryptocurrency markets and I use leverage trading platforms like Bitmex/PrimeXBT. For leverage i use up to 20x mostly but when I want to have some fun I tried 100x but with very little money as It is only for fun.

Overall I use low leverage and stop loss is mandatory.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Desita,

you already got few answers. Yes, the EAs are not connected to the leverage. The leverage is about your trading account. If you have 1:100 leverage it means that you can open a position 100 times bigger than what you have in your account. Of course, this might quickly blow your account and we do not do it, because it is very risky. For example, if you have an account with 1000 dollars inside and leverage 1:100, you can open a position for 100 000…

No matter what leverage you using, when you trade with Expert Advisors, you should keep good money management and not risk more than 2-5% of the account.

 

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey guys, thank you very much for the kind answers. So I understand that when a good money management is followed the leverage should not be an issue. I trade with the smallest lot allowed so it is just fine.

 

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Yes, that is correct! Keep up the good job!

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I use 1:100, have a real account with 5.5k, and I trade about 20 EAs now with 0.02. It is just fine, and I feel safe

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Pete, when you keep small lots and many EAs, you will not have issues with the margin.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

What the broker benefits when the leverage is 1:100 and when the leverage is 1:30, for example. What is the difference between the broker’s side?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

As far as I understand the whole picture now, the bigger the leverage is, the higher the risk takes the trader, which means more profits for the broker, right?

[Stephen]

Exactly, Desita! The huge leverage leads the traders to take a huge risk which leads to blowing the account. That is why the EU brokers were restricted with the leverage. Now all these brokers benefit less, many of them switched to proving real stocks.

[Desita]

Yes, that is right. Anyway, the brokers are meant to benefit from the spread, not when the traders lose. So with the new regulations(and hopefully with more), they will start doing what they are meant to do.

[Deniza]

If the broker is ECN, they still profit the account of the trader when one loses?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I think all of them find ways to profit the accounts when traders lose. Anyway, where the money goes?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I can bet you all goes in the broker. I have friends working for brokers, and indeed the money stays there.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Try to concentrate on creating better and better expert advisor and having better account management. Ignore the brokers :)

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Haliffa is correct. The important is that there are the regulated brokers. I do believe that more and more regulations will get stronger.

However, once you have a regulated broker with small spreads, you are fine.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Actually, everyone says it is the broker fault that many people are scammed, but actually the people are the guilty one that believes such things over the phone….and it is not only about the scammy Forex broker. There are so many frauds over the phone. Everyone should be attentive.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

You are correct, Andi, but keep in mind that these guys are good at what they do. Now, it will be impossible for them to scam me, you or any other experience trader, but the people who are just stepping into trading, they would believe anything.

[jacpin2002]

Hey everyone! Just getting back into posting on the forum. I was going to update my live account to a 1:500 leverage, but I decided not to do so as there is no need at this time. So, I’m still working with a 1:00 leverage and have been doing just fine. :)

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Really, Jacpin? How that works? 1:0 means that if you buy 1 lot, you will use 10k from the account(0.1 lot for 1000USD)?

[jacpin2002]

@Stephen-Sorry about that. You caught my error. I meant that I was trading with a 1:100 leverage. :)

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I think 1:100 is just fine. You would need more if you trade really really many EAs and at the same time they need to be good, so your account will not blow.

[Roman]

Currently trading with 8 EA’s live. Account is moving very consistent. Of course i woke up with a few L’s this morning but have a few trades moving into profit. I trade with 1:200 leverage, not that i need it but to Andi’s point i want to have way more EA’s on the account than what i have currently.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Guys, I trade with 34 EAs currently on the live account and I use 1:100 too. It is fine for me. The recent months I am somewhere between 30 and 40 EAs in the live and about 70-90 on the Demo.

[Roman]

@Bob – you beast lol. I’m trying to get up to that 30 EA range on the live account. But not as easy as I thought it would be. Finally putting EA’s on the live that I created almost two months ago, then removing some that aren’t cooperating. I’ll admit, have been very inconsistent with my generator the last month or so.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hi Roman,

I am just on the other side. Recently, I run the generator all the time 24/7 on minimum 3 tabs. I run it in the morning before going to work for 600 min. When I am back I filter the strategies and I run it again for another 720 minutes. It takes me no more than 15 min before and after work. During the weekends I spend a bit more time to analyze my results and learn from Petko’s courses and videos.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Bob,

Good work! What you do is really what you need to do. To organize yourself is really hard but it is one of the most important things.

I would suggest you to keep your work. Make sure to save you collections, and after that just validate them with the new Historical data.

This way you will not need to run generator/reactor after some time for the same asset and the same time frame.

Kind regards,

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Petko, I am using EA Studio for many months now, and just now I realize that I can save my collections. I am really pissed off with myself! I run reactors daily to get new strategies instead of reevaluating the collections…

Thanks for mentioning that!

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Kiro,

how you have missed that :)

I have a huge folder with many folders inside for all the assets and time frames I trade. Now I separate the collections according to the different acceptance criteria, Stop Loss and Take Profit ranges, etc

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Kiromasterbitcoin,

Yes, it is possible to download the collection, and I am pretty sure I show that in nearly all of my courses. Anyway, if you run the Reactor daily, you will build your collection of collections very quickly :)

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello all,

anyone trading the Bitcoin somewhere with bigger leverage? I wish I had a bigger one during the last days.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Sisi,

most of the brokers reduced the leverage. I guess they are just afraid not to lose as in 2017. This was the time where few brokers nearly bankrupted. Everyone was buying the Bitcoin, and the brokers were losing. Of course, after that, they recovered all the losses very quickly… Probably you would find some not regulated platforms with bigger leverage but I do not suggest you use those.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I believe the trading will get back to normal as the old days where you could trade only 1:1 stocks. I see that many brokers offer now stocks trading. I guess this way the people will lose less.

Sisi, keep in mind that here we know what to do but the mass of people don’t and they lose their account so quickly because of the leverage.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Andi, I think people lose their money is not just because of the leverage but more because of lack of knowledge and education.

I do not think anybody taking a course from Petko has blown an account. If he did, I am pretty sure one did not follow what Petko says and suggests.

I really like having leverage because I trade relatively huge positions with a small risk. It is just fantastic.

Also, I wonder how come the casions are so popular in most countries and there are no limitations in that, and at the same time, there are so many restrictions with the Forex.

And when you are in the casino you do not have real chances…

[Thapelo]

I just do not get it why one would trade without leverage in stocks trading? The leverage is what gives us the chance to profit more. Of course if you do not have any experience and education on stocks market, you can just buy some stocks and wait for months and years the price to go up…does it worth to lock money like that? Not sure.

the leverage in stocks trading allows us to use Expert as well. And who else is doing that ;)

 

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Haliffa,

you are quite correct about what you say for the casinos but this is how it is. Probably the thing is that the people go to the casino with the clear mind that they will lose or have a very small chance to win. Which the scammy brokers promise things to the clients that can not become reality. Do you understand what I mean? The casion does not tell you: Welcome you will win 90% of the time. But the scam broker says that over the phone…

So it is not about which one is riskier, it is about who misleads the people more.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello Thapelo,

you are actually correct! The leverage in stocks trading gives the opportunity to the people to trade more stocks from what they can afford. Many accept it as very risky because they do not know how to use the leverage really. This is the problem. Many beginners blow their accounts because they take a too huge risk. Probably around 70% of the people lose all their money in the account within the first 1 month.

Now if 70% of the people lose quickly and they start to talk that it is risky, and leverage in stocks trading or in Forex trading will blow your account. Yes, this is what the mass of people will talk, write in forums, complain in social media and this what everyone else will hear.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hello,

yes, you are correct. Many people lose because there is leverage is stock trading and the risk is huge.

I am surprised that more than 70% of the people actually lose.

What Leverage in stocks trading do you personally use?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

I prefer to use High leverage in stock trading and Forex, I really like it, but the thing is to keep smart money management…if you risk no more than 2% of your account you will be fine trading any leverage.

[Stephen]

This is just brilliant. EA Forex Academy has helped me a lot to know about money management, leverage in stocks trading and many other essential things that a beginner trader should be familiar with. Great work Petko and team! Personally as a newbie at this, your platform has helped me to grow a great deal. For that I’m highly grateful!

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Yes, EA Forex Academy is not just a website, it is a platform – there are courses, software, forum, posts. I do not find anything missing.

Oh, one thing, I still think a page with trusted and recommended brokers will be useful. I know Petko does not recommend because he is not connected to any broker, but I am sure this will save many from the scammers…

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey guys!

How is everyone doing in the crypto fall? I wish I had bigger leverage or a bigger account. That ESMA thing with 2% is making me mad!

I would have made so much more with bigger leverage.

Just to share with you my trading. I sold at the break of 7500 and then at 5700:

And I used Petko’s system to take the profit with the Fibs.

 

Also, I used his Never losing Formula around 6 times, but actually it was never needed to use it because the price was hitting $200 so fast…

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey mate,

Sorry, I missed our post…just saw it now when I was looking for something.

Glad you found my system of Taking Profit useful. Sometimes it is hard to time the market, but if you do a few times, it is so easy to double your money.

How are you doing now in 2022?

[Ekene Kenneth Anyanwu]

Hello,

 

Is it advisable to use EAs on a 25k dollar account with a leverage of 1:100

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Ekene,

It is a personal choice with how much you will be trading.

25k is a pretty decent amount. More, you can decide how many lots to trade so if you trade with 0.1Lot in a 25k account you will be risking a very small amount.

[Samuel Jackson]

Hi Ekene,

This is copied form an earlier post in this topic:

”Hello, you are absolutely right, Jacpin. The best thing would be to test a Demo account with higher leverage, and you can do it 100% same as your live account. This way you will see what will be the different. basically as Petko said, there will be no difference in the performance, but you will see more free margin to trade with.”

On a 25k account with 100 leverage you have 2.5 million dollars of total buying power but you don’t have to use all that buying power (and definitely shouldn’t), but there is nothing wrong with having it and not using it.

Opening for example 20 0.1 lot positions simultaneously requires 200k of buying power. So on a 25k account you could open all these orders with 1:8 leverage and would have zero free margin remaining (ie you couldn’t open any more trades) but with 1:100 leverage you will still have over 90% of your free margin remaining to open more trades with if you wanted to.

Bottom line 1:100 leverage isn’t risky but trading without good money management is.

 

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Yep, that is a good point, Samuel.

It happens often that beginner traders will put all of their money into trading. When I was working for brokers I saw that over 70% of the people do it.

And you can guess what happens – over 90% blow their accounts in the first 1 month.

Opening a bigger account does not mean you have to put all of the margin into trading, and definitely it doesn’t mean you will profit more.

[Author]

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