Margin Call

A margin call is a broker alert that your account equity has fallen below the required margin level, commonly at a 100 percent margin level. It is a warning that you need to deposit more funds, close some positions, or accept the risk that your broker will start closing trades automatically. Margin calls are triggered by floating losses on open positions eroding your equity, not by losses on closed trades.

The mechanics work through the relationship between equity and used margin. When you open a leveraged position, a portion of your account is locked as used margin. Margin level equals (equity / used margin) x 100. As floating losses grow, equity drops while used margin stays roughly the same, so margin level falls. Most brokers trigger a margin call around 100 percent and then start stopping out positions around 50 percent, automatically closing trades to protect against further loss.

For example, if you have a $10,000 account and open trades requiring $5,000 of used margin, your margin level starts at 200 percent. If floating losses reach $5,000, your equity is now $5,000 and your margin level has dropped to 100 percent. You receive a margin call. If losses continue and equity falls to $2,500, your margin level is 50 percent and the broker starts closing positions automatically. The eventual loss of $7,500 is 75 percent of the original account.

In copy trading, preventing margin calls is part of why systematic position sizing matters. SteadyFlowFX scales every copied trade to the subscriber's account balance, keeping total margin usage within prudent limits. The verified Myfxbook 34.2 percent max drawdown reflects how the strategy manages positions to stay well above any margin call threshold. Subscribers should maintain a small cash buffer and avoid aggressively increasing leverage, because those factors determine whether the strategy's 1.73 profit factor is reproducible on a live account.