MarginCall Margin Calculator

Use this page as a pre-trade pause. MarginCall force-liquidates when equity falls through the monitor line. Patch notes say leverage up to 20x now opens without instantly dying. That only means the explosion happens on the move, not on the click.

This calculator is unofficial. It assumes a simple relationship: roughly room ≈ 1 / leverage before equity on that sleeve is gone, ignoring extra cash, hedges, gaps, and fees. The real engine is stricter because cash posted as margin cannot be spent twice, and because a thin book will fill you worse than a spreadsheet.

How to run the numbers

1. Write down equity you are willing to assign to the idea, not the whole net worth number on the header.
2. Write down leverage you actually intend to click. If the ticket says 10x, do not pretend it is 2x.
3. Divide. At 5x, a 20 percent adverse move is the cartoon graveyard. At 10x, 10 percent. At 20x, 5 percent. If your stop is wider than that room, the monitor is the stop.
4. Haircut the room. Illiquid names, earnings, and commodities deserve half the textbook airbag.
5. Put a stop inside the haircut. Details in How to Survive Margin Calls.

Worked table for a 10,000,000 sleeve:

• 2x → about 50 percent theoretical room. Still enough to ruin a week if you stacked bills.
• 5x → about 20 percent. Fine for people who actually use limits.
• 10x → about 10 percent. A normal down day in a jumpy name.
• 20x → about 5 percent. A spread widening, not a crash.

If you have extra unencumbered cash, your true room is larger. If that cash is already posted, it is not extra. Sound Money made that distinction honest.

What the sheet cannot see

• Options that gap through a strike.
• Futures that mark against you into expiry.
• A squeeze where you are the bid.
• Taxes, wash-sale disallowances, and Life spend.
• Portfolio bugs reported on known issues. If Positions does not show the name, do not add more risk until you find it.

After you have a number

Go back to the ticket with a limit unless you can explain why a market is safer. Read order types if that sentence felt vague. Size using Avail, not using the 75 percent hotkey out of boredom. If the trade still looks good at 2x, maybe it was never a 20x idea.

The review already said the FEX will spit you out. This page is how you decline the invitation. When the buffer is too small, shrink the trade. When you cannot shrink it, pass. Passing is a position.

A two-minute ritual

Read the header cash, not just net worth. Subtract what is already posted. Assign a sleeve. Pick leverage. Compute room. Haircut it. Place the stop inside the haircut. Then send a limit unless you are flattening. If any step feels skippable, you are about to pay tuition. Compare the sleeve to Life bills and factory power so a green tape does not starve the person or the plant. Then go back to How to Trade with a number you can defend.