Managing Leverage Like a Pro: Isolated vs Cross Margin
How isolated and cross margin differ, why Traders Portal uses account-wide cross margin, and how to control leverage with position size, free margin and a stop on every trade.
Every leveraged platform has to answer one question: when a position loses money, which money pays for it? With isolated margin, each position has its own ring-fenced pot, and only that pot is at risk. With cross margin, all of your account's equity stands behind every position, so a losing trade can draw on the whole balance. The choice changes how far a position can move against you, how much one trade can cost, and how the rest of your account is affected.
Traders Portal uses account-wide cross margin. This lesson explains both models, shows the difference with worked numbers, and then focuses on what matters in practice: managing leverage under cross margin with position size, free margin and a stop on every trade.
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A quick margin refresher
Margin is the money set aside to open a position: position value ÷ leverage. Equity is your balance plus credit plus the open profit or loss on your positions, swap included. Free margin is what is left over for new trades or withdrawals. Margin level is equity ÷ margin used, shown as a percentage. If the margin level falls far enough, the platform starts closing positions. Leverage and margin explained simply covers these from the ground up.
Isolated margin: one pot per position
Under isolated margin, which many crypto exchanges offer, you assign a fixed amount of collateral to each position. If the trade goes wrong, it is liquidated once losses approach that amount, and the rest of your balance is untouched. The upside is a clear cap on what one position can cost, barring gaps. The downside is that the position has little room: it gets closed after a smaller move, even if you had plenty of spare money in the account.
Cross margin: one pot for everything
Under cross margin, every position draws on the same equity. A losing trade can keep running for as long as the account as a whole can carry it. That gives positions more breathing room, but it also means one bad trade can eat into the money backing all your other trades, and a stop-out can close positions you were happy with.
| Isolated margin | Cross margin | |
|---|---|---|
| Collateral | A fixed amount per position | All account equity |
| Loss on one position | Capped near its margin, barring gaps | Can reach most of the account |
| Room before closing | Small | Large |
| Effect on other trades | None | A loser reduces free margin for all |
| What limits risk | The margin you assign | Your position size and stop loss |
| On Traders Portal | Not offered | How every account works |
How margin works on Traders Portal
Every Traders Portal account uses cross margin: your whole equity backs every open position, and pending orders reserve margin as soon as they are placed. You choose leverage per order with the Leverage: Nx button, which opens the Adjust Leverage slider, up to the maximum shown in the order panel for that market.
The client bar shows Equity, Open P/L, Balance, Free Margin, Used Margin and Margin Level. You receive alerts when the margin level reaches the warning level set for your account and then the critical level set for your account. At the stop-out level set for your account, positions are closed one at a time, starting with the one showing the largest loss, until the margin level recovers. The platform does not display a liquidation price, but you can estimate one; see margin, leverage and liquidation price on Traders Portal for the full method.
What the leverage slider does, and does not do
Under cross margin, the leverage you pick decides how much margin a position reserves. It does not change how much you gain or lose per dollar of price movement: that depends only on position size. Take the example above at 5x instead of 20x. The margin is 6,000 ÷ 5 = 1,200 USDT, so the margin level starts lower and warnings and stop-out arrive sooner: with the same hypothetical 50% stop-out level, after a loss of 2,000 − 600 = 1,400 USDT instead of 1,850. Higher leverage does the opposite: it frees up margin, which makes it easy to keep opening positions until your total exposure is far larger than you meant.
That is why experienced traders watch effective leverage: the total value of all open positions ÷ equity. In the example it is 6,000 ÷ 2,000 = 3x whichever slider setting you use.
Managing leverage under cross margin
- Size every trade from its stop
Decide the USDT you are willing to lose, switch on TP / SL, and adjust the size until the Loss (USDT) figure at your stop matches it. The stop is your own isolation.
- Keep a ceiling on effective leverage
Add up the Value column in Open Positions and divide by your equity. Set your own ceiling, for example 3x, and do not open new trades above it.
- Leave a free-margin buffer
Check Free margin after in the order summary before you confirm. Using less than the maximum leverage, and fewer positions at once, keeps your margin level well above the warning level set for your account.
- Count related trades together
Positions that move together pull the margin level down together. Hedging and correlation shows how to check this.
- Set your own early warning
In Account → Alerts, add a Margin level alert at a level comfortably above the platform's warning, so you have time to act.
Remember that a stop loss fills at market. In a gap or a very fast move, it can close beyond your level, so leave extra room between your worst planned loss and the stop-out level.
Conclusion
Isolated margin caps each position's loss at its own pot but closes trades after small moves; cross margin gives positions room by putting your whole equity behind them, and lets one loser affect everything. Traders Portal uses cross margin, so the controls that matter are yours: position size, a stop on every trade, a ceiling on effective leverage, a healthy free-margin buffer and an early margin alert. Manage those, and the leverage slider becomes a detail rather than a risk.
Related reading
FAQs
- Does Traders Portal offer isolated margin?
- No. Every trading account uses cross margin, so your whole account equity backs all of your open positions. You control the risk of each trade with its position size and stop loss.
- What is the main danger of cross margin?
- A single losing position can draw on the equity that backs all your other trades. If losses push the margin level down to the stop-out level, positions are closed automatically, starting with the one losing the most.
- Is isolated margin safer?
- It caps the loss on one position at the margin allocated to it, barring gaps, but that position is liquidated after a much smaller move. Neither model is safe on its own; the size of your positions and your stops decide how much you can lose.
- Does choosing lower leverage reduce my risk on Traders Portal?
- Lower leverage reserves more margin per position, which leaves less free margin for new trades and acts as a brake on overall exposure. Your profit or loss per price move still depends only on position size, so size and stop loss matter most.
- How do I find my stop-out price?
- The platform shows your margin level rather than a liquidation price. For a single position, you can estimate it: work out how far equity can fall before it equals the stop-out percentage of your used margin, then divide that amount by your position size.