Standard lot

The standard lot is the reference unit for forex position sizes. On MetaTrader and most other platforms, a volume of 1.00 means one standard lot, and smaller sizes are expressed as decimals of it: 0.10 is a mini lot and 0.01 is a micro lot.

Example

Illustrative figures for pairs where the US dollar is the quote currency (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD):

• One pip is 0.0001, so one pip on 100,000 units is 100,000 × 0.0001 = $10.
• A 50-pip stop on one standard lot risks about $500.
• A 50-pip stop on 2.5 lots risks about $1,250.

For other pairs the pip value depends on the exchange rate. On USD/JPY, one pip is 0.01 yen, so one standard lot is worth 1,000 yen a pip, which at 150.00 is about $6.67. The pip value calculator works this out for any pair and account currency.

Practical note

One standard lot is a large position for most retail accounts. On a $5,000 account, a 50-pip loss on one lot is 10% of the account in a single trade. Many risk frameworks keep the loss on any one trade to a small percentage of equity, which for smaller accounts usually means trading in mini or micro lots rather than standard lots. The general term is covered at lot, and our guide to lot sizes and position sizing shows how to work back from risk to size.