Nasdaq 100

NAS100 is the Nasdaq 100 index, quoted in USD, and the result of a trade on it is counted by multiplying the price movement in points by the cost of one point, which is 1.0 × 1 in the quote currency (USD) per lot, then converting that amount into the currency of your account.

What the Instrument Actually Is

NAS100 is an index instrument. It is quoted in USD, and the size of one contract is 1 unit of the underlying asset per lot. Those three details — index, USD quote, contract size of 1 — are what the rest of the calculation rests on.

Because the contract size is 1, there is no multiplier stacked on top of the price movement the way there might be on other instruments. One lot tracks one unit of the index. That keeps the arithmetic between price movement and money unusually direct, and it is the reason the cost of a point comes out as a clean figure rather than a derived one.

The same ground from another side: Position size · Nasdaq 100 and Value per pip · Nasdaq 100.

The Point, and Why the Decimal Places Matter

NAS100 has a point step of 1.0 and is quoted with 2 decimal places. That combination is worth pausing on, because it defines what a "point" means before any money is involved.

With a step of 1.0 and two decimals, the smallest quoted increment is not the same thing as the point step. The price is displayed to two decimals, but the step the calculation uses is 1.0. Anyone reading a price change off a chart and counting it in the wrong unit will land on a result that does not match their statement.

How the Result of a Trade Is Counted

The calculation has three stages, and they run in a fixed order.

First, the price movement is measured in points. Not in currency, not in percent — in points, using the step of 1.0. This is the raw input, and it is the only place where the market's behaviour enters the sum.

Second, that number of points is multiplied by the cost of one point. For NAS100 the cost of a point is 1.0 × 1 in USD per lot. The first figure comes from the instrument's point value, the second from the contract size of 1 unit per lot.

Third, the resulting USD amount is converted into the currency of your account. This step matters for a trader in South Africa: the profit or loss is generated in USD because the index is quoted in USD, but what lands in the account is expressed in the account's own currency. The conversion is applied to the result, not to the price and not to the point value.

Notice what is not in this chain: leverage, margin, deposit size, holding time. Those affect whether a position can be opened and how much capital is tied up, but they do not enter the formula for the result itself. The formula takes a price movement and a point cost. Everything else sits outside it.

The Part That Has to Be Checked With Your Broker

The cost of a point differs between brokers. This is not a footnote — it is the single variable most likely to make your own arithmetic disagree with your statement.

The figure of 1.0 × 1 in USD per lot describes the instrument as recorded in our instrument reference. A broker may apply its own point value, its own contract specification, or its own conversion handling. The registry entry and the broker's specification are two different documents, and the one that governs your account is the second.

So the practical sequence is: take the point step and the quote precision from the instrument specification, take the point cost from your broker's contract specification for NAS100, and confirm how the USD result is converted into your account currency. All three belong to the same calculation, and a mismatch in any one of them shifts the final number.

Where the Calculator Does the Work

Every figure above is an input, not an answer. The point movement comes from the trade you actually take; the point cost comes from the specification; the conversion comes from your account. Until those are filled in, there is no result to state — only the method for arriving at one.

That is deliberate. A worked example with invented numbers would look concrete and be useless the moment the price moved, and a number computed by hand on this page could not be verified against anything. The calculator on this page runs the same three stages in code, so the output can be traced back to the inputs you supplied and the specification you are trading under.

What the text can tell you is the order of operations and which value belongs where. What it cannot tell you is your result, because your result depends on a price movement that has not happened yet and a broker specification that is not in the registry. Both of those are yours to enter.