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The Foreign Exchange Pip: What Is It And How Can It Help You

Submitted by on Saturday March 19, 2011 No Comments

Analyzing and Demystifying the Forex Pip

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A forex pip is one moniker you will always confront while studying forex trading. Rise and fall are measured with the help of pips so having a deep knowledge about them is a must.

Pips are also employed to appraise the difference of ask and bid prices or the spread. Thus pip is an essential constituent in forex.

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Pip is really short for percentage in point aka price interest point. It is considered to be the smallest measure of variation in amount in the forex trading scene.

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It equips us to measure a rise or fall in currency values in percentage terms in place of in dollars and cents.

Why use it nevertheless? This so for the following reason. When doing business in the forex marketplace, there is no particular currency that can be regarded as a basis for measuring value.

Though the USD is the most revered currency on the trading floor, it’s not used 100 percent. If you are trading cross rates, i.e. two other currencies such as GBP/AUD EUR/GBP or any other pair that does not involve USD, it would not have any significance at all to signify your gains and losses in terms of US dollars.

What is wanted then is a figure that will be a percentage value of the coinage of interest. This signifies that the monetary value of a pip varies as per the currency.

Mainly, 4 decimal points are used to quote a currency. As a case in point you will see the bid price for EUR/USD quoted at 1.3642 and ask price 1.3644. This contributes a spread or difference of .0002 or 2 pips. In this instance the lots pip is 0.01%.

Consequently, one pip would be worth $10 for a $100,000 lot size. Aditionally $1 would be the pip for a $10,000 lot magnitude.

That is the rate of pips when the US dollar is the quote currency, i.e. XXX/USD. With a different currency, a pip ought to be 10 units in that currency say 10 pounds or 10 euros. Or if your trade size size is 10,000 units, one pip is 1 unit (1 euro or 1 pound).

A notable exception is the JPY due to its very less unit value relative to other country’s money. Due to this fact, yen is priced up to two decimal points only.

Look at a quote of USD/JPY at 110.15. This means that 1 pip would be 0.01 or 1 percent in yen, not in dollars. Therefore pip amount is 1000 JPY or at the taken price level, equivalent to $11.015 in USD.

This difference could be a source of confusion at the beginning. So it is better for novices to trade steadily with just one currency pair.

If you are trading one pair routinely every day you will soon get conversant with how much a pip means in connection with your actual gains and losses in your account. The value of a pip in USD or in your native currency becomes a known fact to you.

Once you trade with many other currency pairs, the pips will be of dissimilar values. You could get mistaken about the relative value and risk more than you determined and end up losing more or making less than what you had desired.

It is easy enough to deal with only one pair at first until you have a good understanding of trading practices and currency pip values.

Note: Currency investing can be dangerous, may result in significant losses, and is not suitable for everyone.

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