Margin Trading Calculator
A margin trade lets you hold a position worth far more than the cash you post, and this calculator shows what that really commits you to. Enter the entry and exit prices, the full position size and the leverage, pick long or short, and it returns the required margin, the profit or loss, the return on your margin, and what your stake is worth after the move.
Arithmetic only: this tool charges no fees, no margin interest, and models no maintenance margin or liquidation price. Your broker does all four.
Quick Answer
A $10,000 long position entered at $100, exited at $110, at 10x leverage needs $1,000.00 of margin, makes $1,000.00 of profit, an ROI of 100.00% on the margin, and ends at a total value of $2,000.00. The same 10% drop instead of a rise returns the total value to $0.00. The calculator above is pre-filled with this exact trade.
Key takeaways
- Position size is the full trade value, not your deposit. Getting this one field wrong scales every answer by the leverage factor.
- Leverage never changes the dollar profit or loss on a fixed position. It changes the margin you post and the percentage return on it.
- ROI here is just the price move multiplied by the leverage: +10% at 10x is +100%, and -10% at 10x is the whole margin gone on paper.
- The tool charges no fees or interest and sets no liquidation price. Real brokers do all of that, earlier than the raw arithmetic suggests.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the margin trading calculator
- The four formulas this calculator runs
- Worked example: a $10,000 long at 10x
- Leverage changes the stake, not the trade
- What this calculator does not model
- The rules that cap real leverage
- Margin trading is not the other margins
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the margin trading calculator
Five fields, one click, and the only field people routinely get wrong is position size. Results stay hidden until you click Calculate.
- Entry and exit prices: the prices the position opens and closes at, or the closing price you want to test. The exit price is never checked, so a blank exit counts as 0 rather than producing an error.
- Position size: the full dollar value of the trade. If you have $1,000 of cash and 10x leverage, the position size is $10,000, not $1,000.
- Leverage: how many dollars of position each margin dollar controls. Leave it blank or enter 0 and the tool treats it as 1x, an unleveraged trade; a negative leverage is rejected.
- Position type: long profits from a rise, short from a fall. Flip it to see the same price move from the other side before you commit to a direction.
The four formulas this calculator runs
There are only four calculations here, and each output maps to one of them, so nothing in the result box is a black box.
Profit or loss (long) = ((Exit price − Entry price) ÷ Entry price) × Position size
Profit or loss (short) = ((Entry price − Exit price) ÷ Entry price) × Position size
ROI = (Profit or loss ÷ Required margin) × 100
Total value = Required margin + Profit or loss
Two consequences fall straight out of those lines. First, leverage appears only in the margin and ROI lines, which is why it cannot change the dollar result of a trade you have already sized. Second, ROI simplifies to the price move percentage times the leverage, every time. Brokers describe the first formula the other way round: FINRA's margin account overview frames margin as the equity you must hold against a position, and the required-margin line here is that equity for a single trade in isolation.
Worked example: a $10,000 long at 10x
The pre-filled trade is a $10,000 long entered at $100 and exited at $110 with 10x leverage. Here is the full result, plus the three runs readers most often test next: the same move as a short, the same move going wrong, and the smaller example from this page's older text re-run with the position size entered the way the tool actually reads it.
REQUIRED MARGIN
$1,000.00
$10,000 position at 10x
PROFIT ON +10% MOVE
$1,000.00
10% of the $10,000 position
ROI ON MARGIN
100.00%
The stake doubles on paper
TOTAL AFTER A -10% MOVE
$0.00
Same trade, wrong direction
| Run | Required margin | Profit / loss | ROI | Total value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worked example: long, $100 to $110, $10,000, 10x | $1000.00 | $1000.00 | 100.00% | $2000.00 |
| Same move, short instead of long | $1000.00 | $-1000.00 | -100.00% | $0.00 |
| Long, price falls $100 to $90 | $1000.00 | $-1000.00 | -100.00% | $0.00 |
| Smaller trade: long, $50 to $55, $2,000 position, 10x | $200.00 | $200.00 | 100.00% | $400.00 |
Read the margin column carefully: the tool prints dollar values with two decimals and no thousands separators, so $1000.00 in the result box is one thousand dollars. That formatting is the tool's own and is kept as it is.
Leverage changes the stake, not the trade
Hold the position at $10,000 and the move at +5%, and the profit is $500.00 at every leverage. What changes is how much of your own cash rides on that $500, and therefore the percentage return and the distance to a wipeout.
| Leverage | Required margin | Profit at +5% | ROI at +5% | Adverse move that zeroes the stake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1x (no leverage) | $10000.00 | $500.00 | 5.00% | 100% |
| 2x (US stock margin ceiling) | $5000.00 | $500.00 | 10.00% | 50% |
| 5x | $2000.00 | $500.00 | 25.00% | 20% |
| 10x | $1000.00 | $500.00 | 50.00% | 10% |
| 20x | $500.00 | $500.00 | 100.00% | 5% |
Every row is a separate run of the tool above with entry $100 and exit $105. The last column is the honest part of leverage marketing: at 20x, a perfectly ordinary 5% bad move erases the stake in the arithmetic, and a real broker closes the position before it gets there.
What this calculator does not model
The result is the clean arithmetic of one trade, and four real-world charges and protections sit outside it. Naming them matters more than another decimal place.
- Fees and spread: commissions and the bid-ask spread come off the profit and add to the loss. On small, short trades they can be the largest cost in the trade.
- Margin interest: the borrowed part of the position accrues interest daily. The SEC investor bulletin on margin accounts stresses that you owe this interest even when the trade loses money.
- Maintenance margin and margin calls: brokers demand a minimum equity level while the trade is open, not just at entry. Fall below it and you must add cash or be sold out, which is the world the margin balance calculator works in.
- Liquidation: a broker closes the position before your equity reaches zero, at a price the broker's engine picks. Whether your stake is ring-fenced per trade or shared across the account is the difference between the isolated margin calculator and the cross margin liquidation calculator, and this page models neither.
The rules that cap real leverage
The leverage field accepts any positive number, but regulated markets do not. For US stocks, the Federal Reserve's Regulation T sets initial margin at 50% of the purchase price, which is a hard ceiling of 2x at entry, and FINRA's maintenance rules then require equity of at least 25% of the position's current value while it is open. Higher numbers in the table above belong to forex, futures and crypto venues, each with its own margin schedule and liquidation rules, and brokers everywhere can demand more than the regulatory floor. The FINRA margin disclosure statement lists what that means in practice: you can lose more than you deposit, the firm can sell your securities without contacting you, and you do not get to choose which ones.
Margin trading is not the other margins
Three different ideas share the word margin on this site, and they answer unrelated questions. This page is about borrowing to trade: position, leverage, entry and exit. The margin per unit calculator is about products: selling price minus variable cost per unit, with no borrowing anywhere in it. A short seller who wants the trade result without the margin framing is served by the shorting profit calculator. If your numbers include a loan from a broker, stay here; if they include a cost per unit, you want the other page.
What competing calculators miss
The margin tools ranking for this keyword are mostly built for one market each, and their gaps are consistent:
- IG forex trading calculator: strong on forex points and contract sizes, with margin worked from bet size and margin percentage. Gap: a points-and-pips tool, so a stock or crypto trader has to translate before they can calculate.
- Myfxbook margin calculator: accurate required margin by currency pair with live prices. Gap: margin only. There is no profit or loss, no ROI and no short side, so the question traders actually ask, what do I make or lose, goes unanswered.
- FxRobotEasy margin calculator: adds free margin and stop-out levels for forex accounts, which this page honestly does not model. Gap: it still stops at account plumbing and never prices the trade itself.
- Crypto leverage calculators: several model liquidation prices, which is genuinely useful, but they bury the basic identity that ROI equals the price move times the leverage, and most assume a long-only crypto position.
- The gap this page fills: one market-neutral run from entry, exit, position and leverage to margin, profit or loss, ROI and total value, for long and short alike, with the position-size trap stated in the field itself and a plain list of everything the arithmetic leaves out.
Frequently asked questions
It works out the cash a leveraged trade ties up and what a price move does to it. Enter an entry price, an exit price, the total position size and the leverage, and it returns the required margin, the profit or loss, the return on that margin (ROI), and the margin plus or minus the result.
Position size is the full value of the trade, the whole exposure, not the cash you deposit. A $10,000 position at 10x leverage needs $1,000 of margin. If you enter your $1,000 deposit as the position size instead, every answer comes out ten times too small, so enter the full trade value and let the tool divide by leverage.
Required margin is position size divided by leverage. A $10,000 position at 10x leverage requires $1,000; the same position at 2x requires $5,000. Leverage changes the margin, but it never changes the profit or loss on a given position and price move.
For a long position, profit or loss is the price change as a percentage of the entry price, times the position size: a rise from $100 to $110 on a $10,000 position is +10%, so +$1,000. A short position flips the sign, so the same rise is a $1,000 loss and a fall to $90 is a $1,000 gain.
ROI is the profit or loss divided by the required margin, times 100. Because the margin is the position divided by leverage, ROI is always the price move percentage multiplied by the leverage: a 10% favourable move at 10x is a 100.00% ROI, and a 10% adverse move is -100.00%, the whole margin gone.
A blank exit price counts as 0, it is not treated as an error. A long position then shows a loss equal to the full position size, and a short position shows a gain equal to the full position size. Always type an exit price; the blank behaviour is a quirk of the tool, kept and disclosed rather than changed silently.
No. It models none of them: no broker fees, no margin interest on the borrowed part, no maintenance margin and no liquidation price. Real accounts charge interest daily and close positions before the equity reaches zero, so treat the results as the clean arithmetic of the trade, not a prediction of your broker statement.
Yes, in the arithmetic it can. Total value is required margin plus profit or loss, and a long $10,000 position at 10x that falls to zero shows $1,000 plus -$10,000, which is -$9,000. A real broker liquidates long before that point; the negative figure is the tool showing you the unprotected maths, not a balance a broker would let you reach.
No, they share a word and nothing else. Margin per unit is a product figure, selling price minus variable cost, with no borrowing involved. Margin trading is borrowing from a broker to hold a position larger than your cash. If your question has a price and a variable cost, you want the margin per unit calculator; if it has leverage, you are in the right place here.
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References
- FINRA. Margin Accounts. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- FINRA. Rule 2264: Margin Disclosure Statement. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Regulation T: Credit by Brokers and Dealers (12 CFR Part 220). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of Investor Education and Advocacy. Investor Bulletin: Understanding Margin Accounts. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Investor.gov, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Margin (glossary). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- FINRA. Rule 4210: Margin Requirements. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- FINRA. Margin Statistics. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- FINRA. Understanding the New Intraday Margin Requirements. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Forex Fraud Advisory (retail forex leverage limits). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- National Futures Association. Investor Resources: Forex. Accessed October 22, 2026.