understanding the currency units?

[tradewinds]

I ve just opened an account with Oanda on the advice of the good people here. I think I remember someone saying you can trade in very low amounts. Like less than a pound a pip,25p etc.

Just wondering how do you actually enter in this amount when placing a trade. If you want to enter say 50p how do you do this?

thanks

 

[neil]

Mini account.1 unit = $1
2 units = $2 etc

Practice on the simulator

 

[SvenFoster]

First off it depends on your base currency i.e what your account is and second OANDA allow *any* size lot you care for...

I'll assume USD for simplicity.

GBPUSD:
1 pip = 0.0001 movement on the spot price.
10,000 lot size(mini lot elsewhere)

units x movement = $
10,000 x 0.0001 = $1

In £ (based on current rate)
$1 / 1.7350 = £0.58

Also you can go to... Tools -> Pip/Profit calculator and enter your currency pair, buy/sell, movement and it will calc the total as well as show you the 1 pip value.

Also as an aside, something i like to do is, fiddle with the default number of units to be based on a percentage of your balance. therefore you can *always* put on a trade with a default stop and position sized on % terms. as your balance goes up...so does the number of units... etc.. bit of a suck it and see technique to setting the %units in the settings screen though.

hope it helps,
Sven