The switches

The safety rules are settings, not an account name — Sri Lanka

Three controls decide what a bad trade takes out of you. All three are adjusted on a screen you already have open, and none of them belongs to the account type printed on the card.

Set the trade size on every ticket, set a stop-loss before confirming it, and set leverage low and deliberately in the personal area. Those three, in that order, cap what one mistake can cost. Above them sits one decision no setting can undo: the amount that reached the account in the first place must be an amount that could disappear entirely without your daily life changing.

Switch one: trade size, chosen before the idea is interesting

The order ticket asks for size in the middle of the form, which is the wrong moment. By then the direction has already been picked and the number gets typed to match enthusiasm rather than arithmetic.

Do it the other way round. A lot is the standard order size — one lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 euros — and the smallest step on a regular account is 0.01 lots. Decide which size the balance can support, then look for a trade, not the reverse.

What you see: a size field with a floor it will not go below. What to check: whether that floor already puts more at risk than a small slice of the balance. Next step: if it does, the account arrangement that counts the balance in cents is the one that lets the rule hold — see what the type freezes.

Switch two: the stop-loss, set before the confirm button

A stop-loss is an exit price attached to the trade in advance: at this level, close it. It converts an open-ended loss into a known one, and it is decided while nothing is moving rather than while everything is.

Two practical details. The level belongs where the reason for the trade would clearly be wrong — close enough to matter, far enough that ordinary noise does not reach it. And the instruction is stored on the trading server, so a flat battery, a closed app or a lost connection does not cancel it.

What the two switches produce together

Buy EUR/USD at 1.1000 at the smallest regular size, 0.01 lots, with the stop 20 pips below at 1.0980. A pip is the step from 1.1000 to 1.1001, and at that size one pip is worth about 10 cents — so the stop caps the loss at about $2, and the platform prints the exact figure before you confirm.

That pair of numbers is the whole output of this page. Change either switch and the figure moves; change the account name and it does not. Put your own pair in rather than trusting the example.

Switch three: leverage, the one nobody remembers setting

Leverage lets a position be larger than the money set aside for it. It multiplies both directions at exactly the same rate, so a loss grows as fast as a gain — which is why a high setting is usually discovered rather than chosen.

It lives in the personal area, not in the account type. That has a consequence people miss: opening a smaller or cheaper account does not lower it. It stays wherever it was left, on every account the login carries.

What you see: a ratio on a settings screen. What to check: whether anyone ever set it on purpose. Next step: set it low deliberately, before the next ticket, and note the date you did.

One floor is not a switch at all

Negative Balance Protection means clients never lose more than they've deposited. No setting enables it and none removes it — it applies on every account type.

CFDs are complex products. Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone.

The decision above all three switches

Sizing controls what one trade costs. It cannot control what the balance was allowed to be in the first place, and that is a decision taken before any account exists.

Trading money is never rent, never household bills, never savings a family is counting on, and never borrowed. The test is one sentence: if it went to zero tomorrow, nothing about daily life would change. Write that figure down and date it, then open the sign-up screen — not the other way round.

The ordering matters for a practical reason. Standard sets no minimum deposit, and other account types carry a region-based minimum displayed during sign-up before any money moves. A minimum is a threshold belonging to an account; read next to a figure you have not decided yet, it quietly becomes a recommendation. Moving the money comes after the figure, never before it.

What none of the switches repairs

The trade placed to recover the last one. It arrives bigger, sooner and with a worse reason. No setting slows that down — a written rule to stop for the rest of the day does.
A stop moved outwards while the trade is open. The switch was set correctly and then unset by hand, which is the same as never having used it.
Money that was needed elsewhere. Sizing makes a loss small in currency, not in consequence.

All three are behaviour rather than configuration, which is why they belong on a page about settings — to be clear about the boundary. The rest are collected in beginner mistakes.

Questions about the three settings

Can the stop be tightened instead of the size reduced?

It can, and that is how the rule quietly stops working. A stop squeezed to fit a balance sits where the arithmetic demands rather than where the reason for the trade fails, so ordinary movement reaches it. Move the size switch instead.

Does a smaller account lower the leverage setting?

No. Leverage is set per account in the personal area and carries whatever value it had. Opening a different type changes the size floor and the cost model, and leaves this switch untouched.

Is trading without a stop-loss allowed?

The platform permits it. What follows for most beginners is holding a losing position in the hope it returns, which turns a known loss into an unknown one. Until closing losers is automatic, let the server do it — including on practice trades.

Where does swap fit into this arithmetic?

Only for positions held past the daily rollover. The swap is shown before you confirm and repeats each night the trade stays open, so it changes what a long-held trade must recover rather than what the stop caps.

Money has already been lost. What is the next step?

Stop trading with real money for now and reopen the practice account. For each losing trade answer three things: was a stop set before the click, what share of the balance did it risk, and which switch was left at its old value. Return when those answers come without checking.

The calculator

Size and stop distance in, the figure at risk out — before anything is confirmed.

Run the pair

The frozen column

What the account type actually settles, and why it is not the cause of a result.

Read the card

The ticket

Which fields on the order screen are your choices and which are readings.

Fill one in

Set all three switches where being wrong costs nothing.

A demo takes an email and a password, holds virtual money on live prices, and has no time limit — the same size, stop and leverage controls, with the bill switched off.

The button is a partner link — it leads to the official exness.com sign-up page.

Open a free demo at Exness