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1:30 leverage and a 20 lot cap on a $100k evaluation: which stops a 1% risk trade first

Two limits that rarely get discussed together. Suppose the evaluation account is $100,000 with leverage of 1:30 and a rule that no position may exceed 20 lots. Risk per trade is 1%, so $1,000.

EURUSD at 1.0850, lots needed for $1,000 risk, with a pip at $10 a lot:
8 pip stop: 1,000 / 80 = 12.5 lots
5 pip stop: 1,000 / 50 = 20 lots
3 pip stop: 1,000 / 30 = 33.3 lots

The 5 pip trade just reaches the lot cap, so anything tighter is capped at 20 lots, and a 3 pip stop would risk only 20 x 3 x 10 = $600.

Leverage binds too. At 1:30 the account can carry $3,000,000 of notional, which is 3,000,000 / 108,500 = 27.6 lots. The cap of 20 lots comes first. But look at the margin on 20 lots: 2,170,000 / 30 = $72,333, or 72% of equity. Open a second position and the margin runs out.

At 1:100 the same 20 lots would need $21,700. So tight stops run into two separate walls, the lot cap first and then the margin.

The stop distance at which leverage alone binds follows from the figures. The maximum is 27.6 lots, so the smallest stop that still allows a full 1% risk is 1,000 / (27.6 x 10), which is 3.6 pips. Tighter than that and you cannot reach $1,000 of risk even without a lot cap. That is rarely a problem for swing trades, but scalpers on 2 or 3 pip stops need to know that a figure like 1% is a ceiling, not something the account can always reach. It also means a day of many tight trades has a lower risk per trade than planned, which can be fine, as long as the profit target is set with that in mind rather than from the planned numbers.

Margin is shared across all open positions, which is the more practical limit. With 1:30 and $100,000, the account supports about $3M in total, so two simultaneous positions of 12.5 lots, each $1,356,250 of notional, use 2,712,500 / 30 = $90,417 of margin, which is 90% of the account. A third position would not open. If the firm's stop out level is at 100% margin level, you would also be one adverse move from a forced close. So the pace of entries matters too: three trades of 8 pip stops at 1% each cannot be open at once on this account, even though each risk figure is fine on its own.

The reverse also happens. A trader used to 1:500 at a retail broker may size by feel, say 10 lots on a $100,000 account, and never notice margin. At 1:30 those 10 lots need 1,085,000 / 30 = $36,167, which is 36% of equity, and a second 10 lot position in a different pair brings it to 72%. The size is the same as before, and nothing is wrong with the risk per trade, but the free margin is gone. Before you start an evaluation, open the smallest lot on a demo of the same account type and read the margin figure, then scale it up in your head, and plan the number of concurrent trades from that.

Different instruments carry different leverage in many programmes: forex at one ratio, indices and metals at lower ones, crypto lower still. Suppose gold is 1:20 on the same account. One lot of XAUUSD at an illustrative $3,000 an ounce, 100 ounces to the lot, is $300,000 of notional and needs $15,000 of margin at 1:20, or 15% of the account for a single lot. Three lots would take 45%. The ratio also determines how many index lots fit, with similar arithmetic. It is a reason to read the leverage table by instrument, not just the headline, since the symbol you like to trade may be the one with the tightest ratio.

Interesting interaction. The lot cap mostly matters for scalpers with very tight stops, which suggests that for that style the effective risk per trade on a $100k account is capped well below 1%. Leverage at 1:30 also limits how many positions can be held at once, which is a separate issue for traders who stack trades across pairs.