Calculate the percentage you need to gain to recover a loss and return to your starting capital.
If $100 falls to $80, you have lost 20%. To get back from $80 to $100, you need to gain 25%. The percentage is calculated on a smaller amount.
Loss recovery calculator
Enter the percentage you have lost.
If you started with 100 USD, you have 80 USD left. To return to 100, you need to gain 20 USD.
Understand what could go wrong
Before trading, review these three risks:
- The market: what happens if price moves against you or your scenario no longer holds?
- Exposure: how much money depends on the same idea? With leverage, you must also understand liquidation.
- Exit: could you close when you need to? Liquidity, costs, and platform failures can make this harder, which is why choosing the asset and platform carefully before trading matters.
Try it now: write down what loss you could tolerate and what you would do before reaching it. That limit is a decision rule, not an execution guarantee.
If a loss would force you to use money for basic expenses, review your exposure before trading.
What is liquidation and how can you manage its risk?
Liquidation is the forced closure of a position when the capital backing it no longer meets the required minimum. It may affect part or all of the position. It is not the same as a stop loss you choose.
How it happens, step by step
- You provide margin as collateral to trade with leverage.
- Losses and costs may reduce that backing. The platform compares it with the maintenance margin: the minimum required to keep the position.
- If you no longer meet the requirement, the platform may cancel orders and close positions partially or fully, according to its rules. It does not need you to confirm the closure.
In Futures, Pionex uses the Mark Price to calculate this risk; it does not necessarily match the latest price on your chart. The displayed liquidation price is an estimate that may change.
It does not work the same way on every exchange and broker
Margin requirements, reference price, costs, and closure procedures differ. Some brokers call it stop out. It also matters whether you use isolated margin, reserved for one position, or cross margin, shared across positions in an account.
Because of these differences, liquidation price can move closer to the market faster on one platform or configuration than another. For example, if charges deducted from margin are higher or the bot increases exposure more. This does not prove one platform is always safer: compare the same contract, position, backing, and costs.
Imagine two positions with the same size, backing, and rules. If one pays higher costs deducted from its margin, it loses part of its buffer sooner. Its liquidation price may move closer even if you have not changed the trade.
Why we choose Pionex and what you can adjust
We choose Pionex for trading because its margin and bot management tools fit our approach to managing risk.
In certain situations, we can move liquidation price further away without adding more capital. This depends on the bot type, its state, and the available adjustment. Reducing exposure or using already available capital can help; changing only the leverage number does not guarantee that effect if the position and its backing remain unchanged.
In these two videos, I show practical examples. Before confirming any adjustment, compare the old and new liquidation prices, position size, and costs. Moving liquidation further away does not eliminate losses or guarantee avoiding liquidation.
Example 1 · Move liquidation further away without adding capital
Watch the first example on YouTube ↗Our YouTube channel is originally in Spanish. Some videos may not have an English audio track.
Example 2 · Another practical case
Watch the second example on YouTube ↗Our YouTube channel is originally in Spanish. Some videos may not have an English audio track.
Affiliate link: signing up may give you access to the community discount, and we may receive a commission from your activity. An advantage for you and a way to support the project.
To keep learning, review how to prepare your Plan A and Plan B and the video examples in this section.
Turn those answers into a plan →
To explore what changes when you reinvest profits, try our compound interest calculator.