What the heck is a Lot?

The Forex market (OTC)

The Forex OTC market is by far the biggest and most popular financial market in the world, traded globally by a large number of individuals and organizations. In the OTC market, participants determine who they want to trade with depending on trading conditions, attractiveness of prices and reputation of the trading counterpart.

The chart below shows global foreign exchange activity. The dollar is the most traded currency, being on one side of 89% of all transactions. The Euro’s share is second at 37%, while that of the yen is at 20%.

Written by Administrator
Tuesday, 11 March 2008 20:47
Spot Forex is traded in lots. The standard size for a lot is $100,000. There is also a mini lot size and that is $10,000. As you already know, currencies are measured in pips, which is the smallest increment of that currency. To take advantage of these tiny increments, you need to trade large amounts of a particular currency in order to see any significant profit or loss. Let’s assume we will be using a $100,000 lot size. We will now recalculate some examples to see how it affects the pip value. USD/JPY at an exchange rate of 119.90 (.01 / 119.80) x $100,000 = $8.34 per pip USD/CHF at an exchange rate of 1.4555 (.0001 / 1.4555) x $100,000 = $6.87 per pip In cases where the US Dollar is not quoted first, the formula is slightly different. EUR/USD at an exchange rate of 1.1930 (.0001 / 1.1930) X EUR 100,000 = EUR 8.38 x 1.1930 = $9.99734 rounded up will be $10 per pip GBP/USD at an exchange rate or 1.8040 (.0001 / 1.8040) x GBP 100,000 = 5.54 x 1.8040 = 9.99416 rounded up will be $10 per pip. Your broker may have a different convention for calculating pip value relative to lot size but whichever way they do it, they'll be able to tell you what the pip value is for the currency you are trading is at the particular time. As the market moves, so will the pip value depending on what currency you are currently trading.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 11 March 2008 20:54 )

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