Gold is quoted in USD but the account is settled in EUR—why can't P&L be copied directly?

Author: Thomas | Trading Knowledge | November 11, 2026

Summary: Seeing the gold price move by 10 USD does not mean the account will necessarily increase or decrease by 10 USD. The price unit, position size, contract P&L rules, and account settlement currency together determine the book result. Non-USD accounts especially need to first unify the currency basis, then check the risk budget, to avoid treating a USD amount directly as EUR or another currency.

First distinguish three currencies

XAUUSD usually expresses the price of gold per ounce in USD, but the specific contract is still subject to the platform specifications. The quote currency answers "what unit the price on the chart is measured in"; the P&L currency answers "in what currency the profit or loss generated by the contract is first calculated"; the account currency answers "in what unit the balance and equity are ultimately displayed." The three cannot be inferred solely from the instrument name.

MetaQuotes' official MQL4 documentation lists an instrument's P&L currency and margin currency as separate properties, and defines MODE_TICKVALUE as the tick value expressed in the account deposit currency. This distinction reminds us that the amount displayed by the platform may already have been converted. If you multiply by the exchange rate again, you will double-count. The margin currency and calculation mode also cannot replace the P&L rules.

A conversion example for teaching only

Assume a certain gold contract is 100 ounces per lot, and you hold 0.10 lots, i.e., 10 ounces; from the actual buy execution price to the expected close execution price, it rises by 10 USD per ounce. Ignoring commissions and holding costs for now, the contract's gross profit is 10 ounces times 10 USD per ounce, giving 100 USD. This set of price changes and contract parameters are teaching assumptions, not current market data, nor a uniform specification of any broker.

Assume further that the account is denominated in EUR, and settlement uses an assumed exchange rate of 1.25 USD per 1 EUR; 100 USD corresponds to 80 EUR, calculated as 100 divided by 1.25. If instead using a quote of "how many EUR per 1 USD," you should multiply by the corresponding exchange rate, and the direction must match the units. The example does not include the bid/ask-side exchange rates and conversion fees that an actual platform may use.

Similarly, if you plan to bear an 80 EUR loss, at that assumed exchange rate it is equivalent to 100 USD, not 80 USD. Only after unifying the currency can you compare the planned loss with the price distance of the held contract. If the exchange rate changes later, this converted value may also change; a one-time estimate cannot be fixed as the result for the entire holding period.

How to check before placing an order

First record the account currency, then check the specific instrument's contract size, minimum price tick, P&L calculation mode, and fee currency. Then confirm whether the platform's tick value or order estimate is already displayed in the account currency, and check the value's update time. Different instrument suffixes, account types, or servers may correspond to different specifications, and a screenshot from another account should not be applied.

Use a small teaching calculation to check the units: divide the price change by the minimum tick to get the number of ticks; then multiply by the tick value according to the lot basis explicitly stated by the tool. If the tick value has already been calculated for the current position size, you must not multiply by the lot size again. When the platform documentation is unclear, confirm the basis with the service provider first, rather than trial and error in a live account.

Three places that easily distort the books

First, conflating floating P&L with the net result after closing. Commissions, holding costs, and conversion adjustments may be listed separately; reconciliation should review the complete execution and fund records. Second, double-deducting the spread: if gross P&L already uses the actual opening and closing execution prices, the spread already reflected in the two prices cannot be mechanically deducted again. Third, treating 80 EUR in a EUR account and 80 USD in a USD account as the same risk; the two can only be compared at the same moment and under the same conversion basis.

When an estimate needs to be redone

The above simple method of quantity times price difference applies only to linear contracts that meet the assumptions. Different contract modes, dynamic tick values, exchange rate changes, slippage, and exits that fail to execute as planned will all cause the estimate to deviate from actual results. When platform quotes stop updating or specifications cannot be verified, the calculation result also lacks reliable inputs.

Risk budgeting should start from the loss the account can bear, while leaving room for fees and execution error. Writing currency units in full makes it easier to spot errors than recording only an "estimated loss of 100"; no conversion method can guarantee that the final loss will exactly equal the budget.