Trading & signals glossary
What is a pip in forex?
A pip is the unit traders use to measure how far a price moves in forex. On most currency pairs it’s the fourth decimal place (0.0001); on yen pairs it’s the second (0.01). Gold has no standard: depending on who’s counting, one pip is either $0.01 or $0.10.
How it works
Currency pairs are quoted to four or five decimal places, and the pip is the fourth. If EUR/USD goes from 1.0850 to 1.0851, it moved one pip. The fifth decimal, when there is one, is a tenth of a pip, called a pipette.
What a pip is worth in dollars depends on your position size. On a standard lot (100,000 units) of a pair quoted in dollars, one pip is $10; on a mini lot, $1; on a micro lot, 10 cents.
Signal channels like to post results in pips (“+45 pips”) because the number doesn’t depend on account size. That’s exactly the problem: it doesn’t tell you how much was risked to make it.
How to calculate it
pips = (exit price − entry price) ÷ pip size
For a short, flip it: entry minus exit.
pip value = pip size × units traded
If the quote currency isn’t your account currency, you have to convert it.
Example: a EUR/USD trade and a gold trade
- You buy EUR/USD at 1.0850 and close at 1.0880. The difference is 0.0030.
- 0.0030 ÷ 0.0001 = 30 pips. On a standard lot, 30 × $10 = $300.
- You buy gold at 4,200.00 and close at 4,205.00: price went up $5.
- If a gold pip is $0.10, that’s 50 pips. If it’s $0.01, it’s 500 pips. Same move, a number ten times bigger.
The same gold move (+$5), counted two ways
Calculate it
Run the numbers yourself
Free Verpips tools that do this calculation for you.
Our data · Verpips
What we see in signal channels
- 106 pips
- median claimed per target
- 55.8×
- more “target hit” posts than “stop hit”
- 44%
- median win rate, measured
What they announce
What we measure
of signals reach a target (median)
Out of 24,514 “target hit” posts we read across 269 Telegram channels, 29% state the gain in pips, and the median claim is 106 pips. They post 55.8 times more targets hit than stops hit (24,514 vs. 439), yet across the 18 channels we fully audit against real prices, the median win rate is 44%.
Leaving out forwarded posts and repeated texts, as our quarterly report does, the ratio is 37 to 1.
Verpips data as of Oct 7, 2026, measured against the real price. See how we measure and the channel directory.
Types and variations
- Pipette
- A tenth of a pip: the fifth decimal on most pairs (the third on yen pairs).
- Pips on yen pairs
- The yen is quoted to two or three decimals, so a pip is 0.01: USD/JPY going from 150.20 to 150.50 is 30 pips.
- Pips on gold (XAUUSD)
- No standard: many channels count $0.10, many brokers $0.01. A $1 move is either 10 or 100 pips.
- Points
- On indices (US30, NAS100) and often in crypto, people talk in points, not pips: one point is one unit of price.
Why it matters when choosing a signal channel
A channel posting “+100 pips” isn’t telling you what it risked to get them: 100 pips with a 30-pip stop is a great trade; with a 300-pip stop, not so much. To compare channels you need to measure in R (what you make per unit of risk), not in pips.
Common traps
- Counting gold with a $0.01 pip instead of $0.10: every number comes out ten times bigger.
- Posting the pips on every target hit but never on the stops: the scoreboard looks like nothing but wins.
- Adding up TP1, TP2 and TP3 on the same signal as if they were three trades.
- Counting pips from the best price in the entry zone, which almost nobody actually got.
Key takeaways
- ✓On most pairs, 1 pip = 0.0001; on yen pairs, 0.01.
- ✓Gold has no standard ($0.01 or $0.10): always ask which one the person quoting the number uses.
- ✓What a pip is worth in dollars depends on your position size.
- ✓Pips tell you how far price moved, not how much was risked: to compare, use R.
FAQ: pip
How much is a pip worth?
It depends on position size: on a standard lot of a pair quoted in dollars, $10; on a mini lot, $1; on a micro lot, $0.10.
How many pips is $1 on gold?
Ten if a pip is $0.10 (the usual count in signal channels) and a hundred if it’s $0.01 (the usual count on many platforms). Find out which one each side uses before you compare.
What’s the difference between a pip and a pipette?
A pipette is a tenth of a pip: the fifth decimal on most pairs.
Why do signal channels post their results in pips?
Because pips don’t depend on account size and they sound big. But they don’t show the risk on each trade, which is why we measure in R.
Channel by channel
See these numbers for each channel, not as an average.
With a free account you see each channel’s result in R, its drawdown, and what it announced versus what actually happened.