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Trader's calculator

The trader's calculator is useful for novices and seasoned traders alike as it allows you to calculate all the important parameters of your trade such as the pip value, contract size, spread, swap, margin, commission, and potential profit. Moreover, you can calculate up to 5 trades at once!

Trade settings:

1
Instrument
AUDCAD
Volume
Action
Opening price
Closing price

Calculation results

Show calculation results.

Example

Let's say you have a standard.mt4 account with leverage set to 1:1000, and you want to work out the spread, swap and potential profit for a SELL position of 10 lots of USDJPY.

Let's say that the opening price is 100.500 and the closing price is 100.350.

The following will be displayed in the table:

  • Trading instrument — USDJPY. More information about specific trading instruments can be found in our contract specifications.
  • Price – 100.500. This is the SELL price of the trade. If you want, the calculator will convert this amount into your deposit currency showing the exchange rate.
  • Pip value – 99.50 USD. For more information on how to calculate this value, see our FAQ on trading conditions.
  • Swap (the cost of keeping a position open overnight). This figure can either be positive (in your favour) or negative. More details can be found in our FAQ on trading conditions. The calculator works out the current value of the swap on its own, taking information from the contract specifications.
  • Margin, or the minimum amount of free equity on your trading account required to open a specific position. The calculator looks at the margin requirements for each instrument.
  • Profit. As the position was opened as a SELL position, on the basis that the price would fall, the potential profit is 1,542.25 USD.
If you've made all your calculations and are now ready to start trading Forex for real, register with us now!
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Attention

  • If a result is less than 0.01, the amount displayed is rounded down to zero.
  • 1 pip is equal to:
    • for currency pairs traded to 5 decimal places – the minimum change of the 4th digit after the decimal point (0.0001);
    • for currency pairs traded to 3 decimal places – the minimum change of the 2nd digit after the decimal point (0.01).
  • For nano accounts, 1 pip is the minimum price change.
  • The unit of measurement used in calculations with CFDs depends on the instrument in question. More detailed information can be found in our contract specifications.
  • The trader's calculator does not consider hedged positions when calculating margin requirements.
  • The results shown in the trader's calculator are purely indicative, and may differ from figures calculated by MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5.

Free profit and loss calculator

The profit and loss (P&L) calculator is a financial statement (often referred as an income statement) summarizing all revenues, costs and expenses within a specific time frame. The records provided in the statement show whether the company is able to generate more profit by increasing revenues, or cutting cost, or both. As we already know, businesses usually calculate profit and loss along with the balance sheet (shows what is owned and owed at a single moment) and cash flow statements (presents changes in accounts within specific period of time) which are necessary for comparison.

When you ask yourself how to calculate P&L, there is a general form which begins by asking you to enter revenue (top line), deducting the costs of doing business, including cost of goods sold and operating, tax, in addition to interest expenses. The difference (bottom line) is net income (profit). It is important to compare income statements from different accounting periods in order to understand the numbers and make them more meaningful, as sometimes revenues might be growing but spending is increasing at a higher rate. There are plenty of examples and templates for you to produce your personal or business profit and loss statement online for free.

General information about how P&L calculator works is provided above, but apart from the straightforward usage, it can be very efficiently implemented for trading. Although trading offers the opportunity to make profit by entering the market, well-educated investors always consider risk. Knowing how to calculate profit and loss while trading helps you clearly understand your success or failure rate as it directly affects the margin balance of your trading account. As was already mentioned you can easily find good, free P&L calculators, and by the way most trading platforms automatically calculate it for you, but it is important to understand how it actually works.

How to calculate profit and loss of your trades

Currency trading is a very challenging market and in order to have as much money available for trading as possible, remember to consider profit and loss calculations of your trade as it directly affects your margin account.

The formula to calculate profit and loss of your trades is as follows:

  • total margin balance in your account = initial margin deposit + realized and unrealized P&L

"Unrealized" in this case means that trade positions are still open (but can be closed any time). As soon as you close the trade the profit and loss calculation takes place and, in case of profit, the margin balance will increase, while in case of a loss it reduces. As unrealized P&L calculation is marked to market, it keeps changing constantly as your margin balance does. But do not panic, it is simpler than you think – in order to calculate P&L of a position, you need to check position size and by how many pips the price has moved. Position size multiplied by pip movement will show you the actual profit or loss.

Simple example based on a free P&L calculator: if your account currency is in USD and you bought EUR/USD at 1.09714, by the time the rate gets to 1.11278 you will make $1,564 profit if the size of your positions is 100,000 units.

Once you have the profit and loss values, you can easily use them to calculate the margin balance available on your trading account. You do not have to calculate all your trades manually as usually it is done automatically by the brokerage accounts. Nevertheless it is important to understand the calculations to structure your trading (it will help you to calculate the margin needed to hold a position depending on the leverage your trading account offers). By keeping all that in mind, you will manage your risks effectively and increase the profitability of your trading account.

Calculator for Forex traders – how to use it?

Always look for additional resources so as not to put yourself in a situation when trading feels like a complicated math class. One essential assistance tool is the Forex trader calculator which will help you perform important calculations so as not to lose track of your trades. There are many types of calculators FX offers, so let us go through the main ones and understand how to use them.

The options of Alpari calculator:

Alpari lets you analyse your potential costs and trading results without actually executing an order. To make this happen you just need to use a trade calculator that is very simple to use.

  • First of all you have to select your account type, as different accounts come with various spreads and commissions.
  • After this has been done, select a leverage you use or leave it as the default value.
  • Then, simply select your account currency, as this has a significant impact on your margin requirement.
  • Once the aforementioned set up is in place, select the instrument of your interest, a volume and direction of your trade, and then set the opening and the closing prices.
  • Should you want to consider more positions into your calculations - click to add as many positions as you want.
  • Once you are done listing your positions, click on the button calculate and preview the value of a pip, the spread in pips and in dollars, swaps and required margin to open the trade.

It might seem difficult but it is not at all since all important calculations are performed automatically: all you have to do is to fill the fields regarding your interest. The amount of numbers can be overwhelming but there are so many tricks and tips all over the iInternet which will help you understand more clearly how to use FX calculators in order to visualize your goals and monetary fundamentals.

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