Tickmill Stop Out and Margin Call: 100% and 50% Levels Explained

Tickmill sets its margin call at a 100% margin level and its stop out at 50%. The figures appear in its account conditions as margin call and stop-out of 100% and 50%. A margin call is the warning stage. Stop out is where the platform begins closing positions to protect the account.

Margin level is equity divided by the margin in use, shown as a percentage. Equity is your balance plus or minus the floating result of open trades. At 100%, your equity equals the margin your positions require. By 50%, it has fallen to half of that.

How Tickmill compares

Many high-leverage offshore accounts warn at a 50% margin level and liquidate at 20%, and some go as low as 0%. Tickmill's levels are on the cautious side by comparison. You hear about trouble sooner, and when positions are closed, half of the margin you committed is still there.

A stricter level has a cost. Trades have less room before the system intervenes. A position that would survive a deep pullback at a 20% stop out is closed earlier at 50%. For most traders that is a fair exchange, since trades that reach those depths rarely recover in time.

The four numbers to watch

New traders watch the balance, which stays still while a trade is open. Equity is the figure that moves, and both thresholds are measured from it. MetaTrader shows all five numbers in the terminal window once a position is open.

What happens at 100%

At a 100% margin level you have no free margin. Every dollar of equity is committed to supporting open positions, so you can't open anything new. Nothing has been closed yet. The account is one bad move away from forced liquidation, and the sensible response is to reduce size at once.

Your choices are to close a position, close part of one, or transfer more money in from your wallet. Extra funds raise the margin level and also increase what you stand to lose on a trade that is already failing. A smaller position is usually the better answer.

What happens at 50%

When equity drops to half of the used margin, the platform closes positions automatically. MetaTrader's standard behaviour is to start with the largest losing position and continue until the margin level is back above the stop out threshold. Fills are at market, so in a fast move the closing price can be worse than the level implied.

A worked example

You have $1,000 in a trading account and buy one lot of a dollar-based pair on MT4 at 1:500. The position is worth $100,000, margin is $200, and each pip is worth $10. Your margin level starts at 500%.

Eighty pips brings the margin call and ten more brings stop out. You are left with $100 from $1,000. The warning and the liquidation sit only ten pips apart here, so the margin call isn't a period for reflection.

Trade 0.10 lots with the same account and 90 pips costs $90. Margin is $20, equity is $910 and the margin level is 4,550%. The thresholds never come into view.

Dynamic leverage and margin level

On MT5, Tickmill Trader and TradingView, margin is not a fixed share of position size. Leverage steps down as the position grows. Add a third lot of EUR/USD and that lot is margined at 1:500 instead of 1:1000, so it needs twice the margin of each of the first two.

Used margin rising faster than expected means the margin level falls faster than expected. A trader pyramiding into a winning position can trigger a margin call on a pullback that would have been harmless at the earlier size. The Tickmill leverage guide lists the tiers.

Gaps and negative balances

Stop out works on live prices. If the market gaps over a weekend or on a shock announcement, the first available price can be far beyond the 50% level, and the account can end below zero. Tickmill's safety page says you cannot lose more than you deposit and that an account in negative equity is reset to zero.

That protection caps the loss at your balance. Money sitting in your wallet, outside the trading account, isn't part of the trading account's equity, which is one more reason to keep spare funds there.

How withdrawals and transfers affect it

A transfer out of a trading account lowers equity while margin stays the same. Take $300 from an account with $600 of equity and $200 of margin, and the margin level goes from 300% to 150%. One ordinary swing later you are at the margin call. Check the level after any transfer, as our Tickmill withdrawal guide advises.

How to stay well away from both levels

• Put a stop loss on every trade, at the price where the idea is wrong.
• Risk about 1% of the account per trade and size from the stop.
• Keep used margin under a fifth of equity, for a margin level above 500%.
• Count correlated positions as a single large trade.
• Cut size before weekends and scheduled announcements.
• Use Tickmill's margin calculator before adding to a position.

Spreads play a part as well. Open positions are valued at the price you could close them at, so a wider spread lowers equity even when the mid price hasn't moved. At the daily rollover and around major releases, spreads often widen for a few minutes, and an account already near 100% can be tipped over by that alone.

Free margin is the number to check before any new trade. If the position you have in mind would use most of it, the trade is too large for the account, whatever leverage allows.

Frequently asked

Related reading

• Tickmill leverage
• Tickmill withdrawal
• Tickmill account types
• Tickmill regulation
• Our full Tickmill review