GLOSSARY · POSITION SIZING
What is micro lot?
A micro lot is one hundredth of a standard lot — 0.01 in the order ticket — and is the smallest position most retail brokers will accept.
What it means
On XAUUSD a micro lot controls one troy ounce, so a $1.00 move in gold is worth exactly $1.00. That neat correspondence makes gold unusually easy to reason about: the dollar move in price is the dollar move in your account, per micro lot.
Why it matters
It is also the hard floor on how small you can be wrong. Because you cannot trade 0.005 lots, there is a minimum dollar risk implied by any given stop distance, and below a certain account size that minimum exceeds any sensible risk percentage.
What this changes in practice
This is why account size and stop distance are one decision rather than two. With a $15 stop, 0.01 lots risks $15 — which is 1.5% of a $1,000 account and 15% of a $100 account. Either tighten the stop or fund the account; there is no third option, and no setting inside a trading bot can create one.
Related terms
- Lot sizeLot size is the quantity of an instrument traded in a single position, expressed as a multiple o…
- Contract sizeContract size is how many units of the underlying instrument one standard lot represents, and it…
- Position sizePosition size is the lot quantity chosen so that the distance to your stop loss equals a predete…
Educational information only, not financial advice. Trading leveraged products carries substantial risk of loss. Last updated 2026-08-11.