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Nano lot

A position of 100 units of the base currency, one tenth of a micro lot, offered by a few brokers so small accounts can size risk properly.

Sizes descend in powers of ten: standard 100,000 units, mini 10,000, micro 1,000, nano 100. See standard-lot and micro-lot for the larger steps. On a dollar-quoted pair a nano lot is worth about one cent per pip.

Nano sizing exists so a very small account can still honour a sensible risk-per-trade instead of being forced into a position ten times too big. Some brokers achieve the same thing by quoting in cents rather than dollars, which is where the name cent account comes from.

Example: a $300 account risking 1% has $3 per trade. With a 50-pip stop the required pip value is $0.06, which is 6 nano lots. A single micro lot would risk $5, or 1.7% of the account.

Related: micro-lot, standard-lot, trade-size-units

See it drawn

Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.

How a position size is worked outAccount size, risk per trade and stop distance feed into one box giving the number of shares.ACCOUNT SIZE$25,000your capitalRISK PER TRADE1%of the accountSTOP DISTANCE$0.50entry to stopPOSITION SIZE500 sharesrisk budget: $25,000 × 1% = $250position size: $250 ÷ $0.50 = 500 shares
Working out a position size. Three numbers decide how big a trade is: the account, the share of it put at risk, and the distance from entry to stop. One percent of $25,000 is a $250 budget, and a $0.50 stop divides into that 500 times.

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