What are tick size and tick value in MT5?

Tick value in MT5 is what one tick, the symbol’s minimum price change, is worth on 1.00 lot. The Specification window lists both: Tick size, the “minimum price change step”, and Tick value, the “cost of a single price change point” (MT5 help: Market Watch). With the two you can work out the loss per lot on any symbol, whatever its pip convention:

loss per 1.00 lot = (stop distance ÷ tick size) × tick value

Tick size and tick value by symbol

These are common setups. In the MQL5 book’s sample output, with USD as the deposit currency, EURUSD reports a tick value of 1.0 and XAUUSD 0.1, a different gold setup from the one above (MQL5 book: price accuracy and change steps). That is why the numbers are read, not assumed.

Worked example: tick value in MT5, step by step

The same sum works on EURUSD: a 25-pip stop is 0.00250 ÷ 0.00001 = 250 ticks, × $1.00 = $250 per lot, so $50 buys 0.20 lot. The position size calculator and the pip value calculator do these sums for you, and how to calculate lot size covers indices.

Where to read it

In the terminal: Market Watch (Ctrl+M) → right-click the symbol → Specification. An Expert Advisor reads SYMBOL_TRADE_TICK_SIZE (“minimal price change”) and SYMBOL_TRADE_TICK_VALUE, which MQL5 defines as the value of SYMBOL_TRADE_TICK_VALUE_PROFIT; SYMBOL_TRADE_TICK_VALUE_LOSS gives it for a position at a loss, and the two can differ (MQL5 symbol properties). The MQL5 book says the tick value is “usually in the currency of the trading account”, but some symbols can be configured to use the base currency.

Tick value ÷ tick size gives what a 1.0 price move is worth on 1.00 lot. On a symbol quoted in your account currency, that is the contract size, a quick check that you are reading the right numbers.

Common mistake: dividing by the point

On forex, the tick size and the point are usually the same number, so mixing them goes unnoticed. On some futures and CFDs the price moves in ticks larger than its last digit, and dividing the stop by the point instead of the tick size overstates the number of ticks, and the loss per lot, by that ratio. Divide by the tick size. The other common error is multiplying by a textbook pip value instead of the broker’s own tick value.

How PipWarden uses tick value

This is the method PipWarden uses for every order. The EA, which runs in MT5 on your Windows PC or VPS, reports each symbol’s tick size and tick value from your broker. The platform takes your risk per trade (1% of equity by default), divides it by (stop distance ÷ tick size) × tick value, rounds down to the volume step and caps the result at your maximum lot. Below the broker’s minimum lot size, the trade is skipped and logged as “Risk below minimum lot”. Limits are checked before every order, and gaps or slippage can still make a loss larger than planned. See how it works.