Hello) As we all know that forex trading isn’t about a single strategy or a single style,different traders have different trading strategies and different trading styles.But what is the maximum pip level a true professional forex trader can achieve in a one month time period (20 trading days) any ideas or personal experiences ?Please share
Here’s a ball park for you from a pro trader (not me), 5 - 10 trades a month, 300 - 500 pips.
Depends greatly. I tend to generate a larger number of pips, however I carry a large basket of trades so my risk is spread out. 1000 pips for me is 10 percent gain but it could be a windfall for another guy.
$ dont lie. Dont worry too much about pips, percentage gain on account is more important.
Come on man how you can increase your percentage gain without hunting more pips.Because in forex trading profit means lot size multiply no of pips
1000 pips is a good level.
I don’t really think in terms of pips, other than to make sure that on any individual trade I am targeting at least as many as I am risking. I just think in terms of percentage gain on my account. This is because I trade a few different approaches, and I trade both EOD and Intraday.
I risk 1% per trade, I target at least 1% back, and the minimum number of pips I will have as a SL is 20 (simply as I think anything less leaves me too exposed to volatility). But my monthly pip haul varies wildly, vastly more so than my percentage return, as it depends which approach proved more fruitful in a particular month.
For instance, last Tuesday morning, I placed three Intraday trades, targeting 20 pips each time, all on EUR/USD. They all hit TP, so I risked 60 pips, made 60 pips, and put 3% on my account just from that move. I had other Intraday trades that also risked 20 pips/1% to make the same back. However on my EOD, I might have a 200 pip SL, make 400 pips, but that is ‘only’ 2%. I have had trading months where my pip return has been well into four figures, yet have not made vastly more money than I did making a few hundred Intraday pips.
There have been periods through this recession when my EOD trading didn’t make great money, other times when it was like shooting fish in a barrel. In a month when the EOD was going particularly well, I didn’t bother much with Intraday. When the market was not particularly supporting my approach to EOD, I ramped up the Intraday. All of this was to keep my percentage returns broadly where I like it, but an obvious side effect was that my monthly pip haul varied.
So I never target pips, for me it is all about R:R and keeping my risk consistent as a percentage of my account. I’d have to check my records to know how many pips I took in any given month, I couldn’t get within 100 off the top of my head, which shows how little I value pips for themselves.
To me, it is impossible to say that 1000 pips is good in abstract, it has to be considered in context.
In terms of percentage returns, if I could now sign a piece of paper that guaranteed me a 5% return for life I’d bite their arm off, as I’d be set and wealthy at some point in the not too dim and distant. As it is, I regularly beat that level, but with the ongoing risk attached I am personally more interested in lower risk returns than I am in eye-catching pip returns.
Anyway, just my take on it. Anyone making money consistently over the long term is getting it right in their own way!
ST
I disagree with you. Excellent trading rules combined with poor money management can result in overexposure and underperforance of a system. $ are influenced by how traders treat there pips. Pips are more objective in assessing a system. But pips alone is also limitative.
At least that is my opinion.
Assuming true pro traders are able to maximize what the markets give them…
As if with retail traders I think that also the greater part of the pro traders are only reasonably good. They just deal with grater sums of money, so the make more $.
Perhaps it is a good indicator when our traders mention how many pips they make average in a month.
With my main system (one pair, about 1-3 trades a day) I make on average 400 pips in a month. This is pretty consistent, so it keeps me smiling.
Pips on their own are very misleading, but if you combine with average £ (or $) gain (or loss ) per pip, that gives a better picture:
As an example, Joe Bloggs makes 60 pips total net profit in one year (Jan to Dec) … or on average 5 pips a month. To most that is laughable and may seem pathetically low, but Joe’s average £ per pip was £1,000 … so he made £60,000 in the year. Who is laughing now? This is assuming that Joe has sound risk management skills and a huge account to trade with.
Thanks for the reply) I agree with you as well as disagree) Pip value is a important thing as it determines our profit or loss but the more important thing is the ability of a trader to pull the best out of the market.You can increase your lot size any time for increasing your pip value.So i believe that a true professional trader is the one who can achieve maximum no of pips according to the given market condition by keep in mind his or her trading style.
cant agree with you, just take 2 examples:
trader A, makes 75000 pips in 1 year with a max drowdown in this period of 350000 pips.
Trader B in the same period makes 450 pips with a max drowdown of 70 pips.
is trader A better than B?
who would have earned more money?
then who should be the best trader?
there is anyway that trader A can use his pips to make more money than B with the same risk and mm?
just my opinion
In this scenario both traders might have been different trading styles.The one who pulled the maximum no of pips from the market according to his trading style is better.
your approach is not the correct one. As soon as you realize it would be better for you as a trader and your account.
in forex trading profit means pips x lot size. true, but there is something more.
not only you can increase your account % hunting less pips, you can even increase it while you are losing pips.
for example imagine you trade 2 strategies 1 long term and other intraday. you are risking 2% of your initial monthly balance/trade with both strategies. In one month the long term strategy lose 2 trades of 500 pips each one so you are now down 1000 pips=4% of your account. however that was a good month for your intraday strategy, using a 1:1, R:R you won 5 trades of 10 pips each one.
so in this month you would have lost 950 pips but increased your account a 6%.
as Dra said its all about account % not about pips.
so a guy who managed to get 450 pips with 70 pips dd but is not trading with his trading style is not a good trader?
I will put another example
the trader 1 started trading forex with 100k $,. after 10 years his account balance is 101k, he has earned a total of 10k pips, but his maxim dd was a 92% of his account
now a trader 2 started with 100$. after the same 10 years his account balance is 100k, he has earned a total of 1200 pips with a max dd = 10% of his account.
assuming both trade using the same trading styles, according to themselves.
I will ask you again, who is a better trader?
or on in other words if you should let one of them trade your money who of them you would chose? the 1 who promise you a 1% returns in 10 years with a 92% drawdown, or the n2 who promise you a 100000% returns in 10 years with 10% drawdown? you would chose the n1 saying HEY! i would earn 8,8k more pips than with n2? I dont think so.
just trying to help you understand why i think you are wrong. sorry if this sounded rude, not my intention at all.
interesting discussion!
its great to get an insight into how you guys do and the different styles on show here.
Thanks for sharing
as long as you make a profit at the end of the month and have good money management and risk to reward is good sounds like a winner
Well it is a discussion that have been done multiple times… And the ‘schools’ can’t agree with each other… The bottom line is I think that you should not use Pips or % return equity on itself but you have to look at more…
Forexworth already said to agree and disagree, and that should have been the end of it…
Forex, I am on your side man… They are quite keen on their % of returns. We will die old as old men before we and they agree…
im not really a keen of % returns, but when you are using 2 strategies 1 “long” term and other intraday, you cant measure your succes using pips, as 1 loss from the long term strategy would be bigger than 5 intraday wins, then is when i use the %.
well i was not speaking about a system; when i backtest my strategies i use pips not account %, what im trying to say is that you cant determine if 1 trader is better than another just for the n. of pips he makes, because thats too relative to be a solid foundation on wich we can base our opinion.
I think we are already agree and we are still young, aren’t we?
…
Got to agree with you on that one agree to disagree
Okay, perhaps this helps as an example why pips or %return aren’t good on their own. The example is based on a backtest I ran for a new strategy that I have scripted. It covers Aug-mid Dec 2012. Total pips 1376. EURUSD M1.
Changing Money management rules: (Starts 10,000 EUR)
- 2% max risk: 260%
- Fixed lots at (Start Equity/300): 554%
- Fixed lot ceiling (Equity/300): 2939%
- My MM rules: 3033%
- Using maximum leverage on each trade (200:1) 1255%
There is a slight difference between each of them, but the trade results stay the same. (This is what paw3000 als refers to). So I am not really interested in what the % return is, as I will decide my own Money management rules when applying a trade system. I just like to see how many pips a system generates as my lot size will cap at a certain time, meaning that each profit pip would be one max lot value unit.
So I agree, when building your equity Only % return or pip doesn’t suffice. But when you trade a maximum pip size based on the system you use than Pips says it all for me.
I understand that the opinions differ. This just work for me and I thought a more worked out example would help in having getting another point of view from the “Pips rules!” side of the world.