Can I enter commodity quantity in lots?

What the setting does

Commodity Quantity in Lots changes how you enter quantity for commodity contracts, and nothing else.

• Off (the default). You enter the quantity as a multiple of the lot size, exactly as before. For a contract with a lot size of 250, you enter 250 to trade 1 lot.
• On. You enter the number of lots. For the same contract, you enter 1 to trade 1 lot.

Stocks, futures and options are not affected. Neither is anything else on your screen.

Where to find it

Settings → General, in the Trading group. It is off until you turn it on, and you can turn it off again at any time.

Why it exists

Brokers do not agree on how to count a commodity quantity. For the same contract, some broker platforms count in lots and others count in units.

That means the same number could place two different trades. If you hold accounts with more than one broker, you may already be entering 250 on one and 1 on the other for the very same trade.

With the setting on, you enter the number of lots everywhere, and we convert it to whatever each broker expects. One number, one meaning, whichever broker the account belongs to.

What changes when you switch it on

• The quantity box on the order screen takes a number of lots.
• Your order book and positions show lots as well, so the number you see is the number you would enter.
• Quantity multipliers and copy trading work on lots, so a multiplier of 1.5 on 2 lots gives 3 lots.

Before you switch it on, if you use the API

The setting applies to orders sent by your own programs too, not only to orders you place on the website. It is stored against your account, so it changes what the API, a chart bridge, or any other automation is sending.

Update your program first. If it carries on sending its usual quantity, that number will be read as that many lots. Sending 250 would mean 250 lots.

If you send orders only from the website, there is nothing to prepare.

Before you switch it on, cancel any waiting commodity orders

If you have commodity orders that are still waiting to be filled, cancel them before you turn the setting on.

Those orders were entered in units. Once the setting is on, we show them as lots instead, so they appear as a smaller number than you entered, and sometimes as 0.

That matters if you then change one of them. The smaller number is treated as lots, so the order can become much bigger than you meant it to be.

Cancel them first, turn the setting on, and place them again as lots.

Contracts that do not change

Some commodity contracts already have a lot size of 1. For those, the number is the same either way, so nothing changes when you switch the setting.

This is why there is no single rule like “divide everything by 250”. The lot size is different for each contract, so check the contract you are trading.

If your broker has not told us how it counts

For a small number of brokers we do not yet have this information. On those accounts the setting makes no difference: your quantity is sent exactly as you typed it.

So if you turn the setting on and a commodity order is rejected for its size, that is the likely reason. Switch the setting back off, enter the quantity the way you did before, and tell us which broker it was. We will check it with them and fix it at our end.

What does not change

• Stocks, futures and options.
• Any position you are already holding.
• Your profit and loss figures. Only the way the quantity is counted changes, not the size of your trade.