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Risk & Money Management

What Is Scaling In

Scaling in is building a position in pieces at different prices instead of all at once, so that each piece has its own price and its own distance to the one stop under them all. This paper shows you three pieces of 0.10 lot bought on the euro against the dollar on 17 December 2025, at 1.17166, 1.17316 and 1.17466 with one stop at 1.16916; the idea as a wall built in courses; the three lines on the fifteen-minute chart; the receipt piece by piece, 120 dollars at the stop against 75 for the same size bought at once; and the Trade tab on your platform, which shows three tickets on a hedging account and one position at the average on a netting one.

Difficulty
Beginner
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

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Three pieces, one stop

Scaling in is building a position in pieces at different prices instead of all at once. Take the euro against the dollar on 17 December 2025, bought in three pieces of 0.10 lot: at 1.17166, the 10:15 close; at 1.17316, first traded at 15:15; and at 1.17466, first traded at 17:00, with one stop under all three at 1.16916. The pieces sit 25, 40 and 55 pips above the stop, so at 0.10 lot — 1 dollar a pip — they stand to lose 25, 40 and 55 dollars, 120 in all. The same 0.30 lot bought at once at 1.17166 would stand to lose 75 at the same stop. The add prices are examples. The arithmetic is not.

A wall built in courses

Picture a wall built in courses. Each course is laid on the one before, and each stands higher above the ground than the last. A position built by scaling in is that wall. The first piece is the first course, the next is laid on top at a higher price, and the ground under all of them is the one stop. The top course has the farthest to fall. A piece added later is further from the stop, so it has more to lose there than the piece before it, and the wall as a whole has more to lose than the same bricks laid in one go at the first price. Nothing about the wall says how high to build it.

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