Forex Trading Basics – Forex Quotes, Pips & Spread
Understand what is forex pips and spread and how it works. These are very important measure of success in forex trading.
Understanding Pips and Lot Size
Pips is the basic measurement use in forex trading to measure price movement. Pip is the smallest price movement in forex trading and pip stands for the acronym percentage in point. If you bought EUR/USD at 1.3123 and you sold it at 1.3126 you earned 3 pips, you get that when you subtract from your selling price (1.3126) your buy price (1.3123) and the equivalent dollar of every pip depends on your trade lot size, micro lots is the smallest lot size 1 pip equals $0.10 per pip, next is mini lots and 1 pip equals $1.00 per pip and for standard lots 1 pips is equal to $10.00.
Reading Forex Quotes
To better understand how forex quotes works let us assume on the following sample quote price for EUR/USD (Euro Dollar); Sell price 1.3120 and Buy price 1.3123, this quote means that you can buy EUR/USD at 1.3123 and you can sell it or short sell it at 1.3120. You notice that the sell price and the buy price are not equal, their difference is what we know as spread.
Forex Spread
Most forex brokers do not charge that client with commission fees or brokers fees, how then do the forex brokers earn when we trade with them? The answer is through the spread, which is why one of the selling points of forex brokers is offering low spread to their client. To explain further let say you bought EUR/USD at the buy price of 1.3123 just right after you bought this pair you are already registered a loss of 3 pips because you can only sell it at 1.3120, sell price of 1.3120 less buy price of 1.3123 equals negative 3 or 3 pip loss. The 3 pips initial loss actually goes to your broker and works like a broker’s fee.
Our first example is a buy transaction it will also be the same when you sell short a currency pair. Selling short EUR/USD at 1.3123 will give you the same 3 pip loss because when you close your short trade you will have to buy it at 1.3120.
Every time you enter a trade whether buying or selling short a currency pair you are charged by your broker via the currency pair spread, this is just once every time you enter a trade and when you close a trade this is actually the time when you pay your broker the spread.
During volatile times in the market spread can move from your regular 1-3 pips to 10-50 pips in just seconds this kind of movement happens in anticipation of a great move or when there are favorable or unfavorable economic news that just become available to the market.
Use pip in measuring your profit or loss or when measuring risk and reward of a trade. Take advantage of brokers that offers small spread or better yet guaranteed fix spread. Avoid buying or selling during wild movement of price because you increase the risk of getting charge with a high spread.
Find out more about Forex trading basic principles by checking out LiteForex broker. You can also read more about is silver a good investment.