Margin level is the one number on your platform that tells you how close you are to a forced liquidation. Here's how to read it, compute your survival distance in pips, and raise it when things get ugly.
22 min read
Your platform shows margin level as a percentage. Useless. What you need is the number of pips between here and the call, and here and the stop-out. We work it out by hand, case by case.
21 min read
Stop-outs are supposed to close you before zero. Sometimes the market moves faster than the stop-out. Here's exactly when an account goes negative, who eats the loss, and what the fine print says.
21 min read
One is a warning. The other is your broker closing trades for you, in an order you didn't choose, at prices you won't like. Knowing the gap between the two is what keeps accounts alive.
21 min read
