Equity

Equity is your account balance adjusted for the floating profit or loss of any currently open positions — it's the real-time value of your account if you closed everything right now. Equity, not balance alone, is what brokers use to calculate your margin level and decide whether a margin call is triggered. Watching equity rather than balance is essential when holding open trades, since a large floating loss can push equity toward the margin-call threshold even though the balance hasn't changed yet.