A gap you can measure

Risk, drawn as the distance between two prices · Taiwan

Q: Where is this arithmetic done, if the picture cannot do it?

Off the chart, on the practice calculator : deposit, percent risked and distance go in, a trade size that fits comes out.

In a price picture the risk in one trade is not a mood — it is a gap. One end is the figure the trade opens at, the other the figure that would show the reading was wrong. This page measures that gap in four units.

The short version. Pick the figure that would show the reading was wrong and attach it as a stop-loss — an instruction to close automatically at that price. The space between it and the entry is the risk, priced by the platform before anything is confirmed. Keep it near 1% of the trading money, keep leverage low, and use only money that could go to zero without changing your life.

Two ends

Where the gap starts, and where it is allowed to end

The near end draws itself: the figure the trade opens at, a height on the price edge.

The far end is chosen, and choosing it is the whole exercise. It belongs not where a loss starts to sting, but where the reading is plainly no longer standing. Too near and ordinary wandering knocks the trade out for nothing; too far and reaching it hurts. Nobody knows that place on day one — which is what a practice account is for.

Both ends must exist before the trade does: chosen in advance the far end is arithmetic, chosen while the figures move against you it becomes a negotiation. And it is not a drawing — the stop-loss lives on the trading server, not in the app on your phone, so a flat battery changes nothing. Placing one takes a couple of taps — see the first trade guide.

One gap, four units

The same distance, said four different ways

A trade opens on EUR/USD at 1.1000 at the smallest size, 0.01 lots, with the far end at 1.0980. Every row below describes that single gap.

Said as	The gap in that unit	What makes the number move
A space on the screen	The height between two places on the picture	Moving either end — or just stretching the price edge
Two figures	1.1000 down to 1.0980	Moving either end. Stretching changes nothing
Steps of price	20 pips, a pip being the step from 1.1000 to 1.1001	Moving either end. Stretching changes nothing
Money	About $2, one pip at this size being worth about 10 cents	Moving either end, the trade size, and the account type

Read downwards and the point appears: only the top row answers to the zoom, which is why it is the one reading that cannot be trusted. Whatever the platform states before confirming is the version that counts; what each word in the left column names is in the word list.

Same gap, different picture

Why two readers disagree about whether 20 pips is close

Two people can open one instrument at one moment and describe that gap in opposite terms — tight for one, generous for the other, both honest. One price edge covers a narrow slice, so twenty steps fill half the window; on a wider one they flatten to a hairline.

So judge a gap by subtracting two figures, never by how tall it looks — off the price edge it is the same number on every screen, which is why reading a chart aloud keeps to figures.

Timeframe labels are the same trap in other clothes: a slower label folds more time into one shape, so the picture calms down while the two prices at the ends of the gap are untouched.

Off the picture

Two things the gap never shows

Whether the price will get there

The right-hand side of the drawing is empty and stays empty. A far end says where reading stops, not what the undrawn block of time will hold.

Whether the amount is bearable

The picture holds prices and has never heard of your balance. Off the chart the rule is arithmetic: one trade should not be able to lose more than about 1% of the trading money.

Turn a gap into a size

On $100 of trading money 1% is $1, so the $2 gap above already sits outside the rule, and the repair is a smaller trade rather than a shorter distance. A floor exists: 0.01 lots is as small as a Standard account goes, while the Standard Cent account holds the same trades in units about 100 times smaller — the identical gap then costs about two cents (account types).

One end that is never drawn

Below every gap sits a floor no chart marks. Negative Balance Protection keeps the balance from falling below zero: an Exness account cannot go negative.

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

Two screens, side by side

Grading a far end afterwards, with two captured images

A gap is graded only once it is finished, and the tool is a screen capture rather than a memory.

Capture the screen before confirming

Instrument, timeframe label, both figures, and the amount the platform states. Save the image with the date in its name.
Capture it again once the trade is closed

Same instrument, same label, or the shapes will not line up and the pair is useless.
Say what the later image holds that the first could not

How much of the gap was used, whether the far end was touched at all, and whether the wandering that ended the trade fitted inside one block of time.

When the gap stops being a measurement

All of that is arithmetic, and arithmetic survives only while the person doing it is calm.

Whose money it is changes nothing on the screen and everything in the reading. Trading money is never rent, household bills, savings a family counts on, or borrowed. The test is blunt: if it went to zero tomorrow, your life would not change. When it is secretly next month's rent, ordinary wandering reads as an emergency.
Leverage never touches a single candle. It changes how large a trade the same deposit can hold, and multiplies losses exactly as much as gains — which is why accounts empty in an afternoon on high settings. Keep it low while learning to read.

Then comes the failure that undoes both at once: revenge trading — a trade loses, the sting arrives, a larger one follows to win the money back. Drawn by frustration rather than reading, that second gap usually makes one loss into three. The defence is set in advance: after a losing trade, stop for the day. More traps of the family are in the beginner mistakes guide.

Questions asked with the gap on screen

Where on the picture does the far end belong?

At the price where the reading behind the trade is plainly no longer standing, not where the loss starts to sting.

The gap looks tiny on my screen. Does that make it small?

It tells you nothing by itself. Stretch the price edge and the same distance fills the window; squash it and it vanishes. Subtract the two figures instead.

Nothing forces that instruction onto a trade. What happens without one?

The platform allows it, and some experienced traders manage exits by hand. Without one there is no far end and no amount: the loss is whatever the market does while a beginner waits for the price to «come back».

The price came straight back after my trade closed. Was the far end wrong?

Sometimes, and one case never proves it. A far end sitting inside the ordinary wandering of one block of time gets touched often; that one is worth moving. One reached because the reading was wrong did its job precisely.

Does the exit still work with the screen switched off?

Yes — that is the reason for attaching it. The instruction sits on the trading server; the phone holds only a picture.

Price is walking towards my line. Can it be pushed further away?

The platform permits it, and that is where a measurement turns into a wish: the amount stated before confirming is no longer the amount at stake.

Does a slower timeframe make the same gap safer?

It does not. A slower label folds more time into one shape, so the drawing looks steadier, while both prices and the money are identical.

A trade just lost. Should the next gap be wider to make it back?

No — that is the move turning one loss into three. Stop for the day, open the two captured images, name the rule that broke.

Where is this arithmetic done, if the picture cannot do it?

Off the chart, on the practice calculator: deposit, percent risked and distance go in, a trade size that fits comes out.

Measure a gap where being wrong is free.

Put one instrument on a practice chart, mark the two prices, and let the platform state the amount before confirming. Nothing is deposited. The button opens the exness.com sign-up through a partner link.

Open a free demo at Exness