The dumbness of this question may scar you for life. Proceed with caution.
What sort of average pip/period can a diligent, careful newbie hope for? Using someone else’s system, obviously, at first.
We had a fairly extensive discussion on the matter here…
http://forums.babypips.com/forextown/12094-how-much-does-average-forex-trader-make.html
In general the answers will range from “95% of traders lose money” to “$1,000,000 in one year”.
Consistently making 20+ pips per week is a good starting goal.
What sort of time investment would that entail? At a cost of sounding terribly naive, I must ask is not that awfully little to show for a day’s work?
I don’t consider forex something that you’re spending a ton of time doing. I’ve only demoed for about 3 months but I averaged between 200 to 350 pips for the month. And that’s with only spending 5 minutes or so making sure a trade is valid when my indicators go off.
Hi,
I’m afraid that (from my point at least) the answer to your question would be pretty much the same answer to the question ‘how long is a piece of string’!!!
What I CAN tell you though (from bitter experience) is that setting a ‘number of pips per period’ as a goal can ‘mess you up’ for the simple reason that if you’re losing the tendency is to try to ‘make up’ the loss and then ‘chase the market’ until you’ve reached your goal (again). The only way to ensure that this does not happen is to find a trading system that works for you and that you are comfortable with and trade it without worrying about how much you’ve made or how much you’ve lost. That way you’re concentrating on TRADING. Constantly calculating your % gain on capital or number of pips made brings with it a whole HOST of problems most of which being pshycological in nature. Let me give you but ONE example (and you can ‘fathom’ the rest from there): let’s say that today you reached you ‘target’ pips and you close out your positions and everything is great. Now tomorrow you open some positions and these don’t go in your favour. Instead of now following your system (which is what generated yesterdays profits in the first place) the tendency will now be to hold on to those losing positions UNTIL they’re either at breakeven or at a profit because you don’t want to ‘obliterate’ your goal that you achieved yesterday. The eventual ‘normal’ outcome of this type of behaviour is almost always disaster!!! Yes you DO NEED a goal but the point is to just ‘let it happen’. I ‘tally up’ my % gains on a weekly basis for my own accounts and on a monthly basis for my client accounts and that’s it. Nobody’s perfect and EVEN NOW SOMETIMES I find myself ‘straying’ particularly after a real good trade i.e. after a really profitable trade now and then I will find myself calculating my % gain on capital there and then and you know what: pretty soon after doing that I have found myself breaking one or the other rule of my systems because I did SO well on that good trade that I didn’t want to lose the profit and BECAUSE of this I may have ended up losing ALL the profit on that good trade and then some. I promise you that success in this business is 99.99% psychology and 0.01% ‘system’. Believe it or not!!!
I know, I see most of these things happen in my demo trading.
I would have to agree with Dale’s comments. I would say find a method that works with your trading style and risk profile and become consistant in that method. The profit you’ll make will be largely influenced by the method you adopt and how good you are as a trader. As such people will perform differently. I think a good place to start would be to define your own set of monetary goals and evaluate what you’ll need to do to achieve them. I also tally my %gains weekly rather than keep a running total of pips. For example one week you could have had a net negative pip count but a positive % increase in your account. Hope this helps some 
Oh by the way, in regards to both of the last responses. The question was not like the one in the above linked thread. Though they are obviously close. What I could make as a trader is extremely hard to define even knowing me, never mind not having any idea of what I can do. But I think it’s infinitely easier to say what’s a reasonable expectation for a new trader. From what I read so far it’s reasonable to expect to lose all the money and quit more than anything else.
Also in regards to systems, the last thing a new trader can come up with is his own system, no?
Your indeed correct, being a new trader you probably dont know what you can make as a trader yet but i strongly believe before undertaking any form of investing you should know what it is your looking to achieve and what your definable investment goals are, you then look at the best way of achieving them.
Now i could say 10pips, 50pips or 1000pips but how is that beneficial to you? The method is what’s important. Just because your a new trader doesnt mean you’ll perform poorly. You could be some super wiz and out perform some pro’s, who knows? Things like this are trader specific. I don’t thing you should expect to lose all your money first, there’s experiences from alot of traders here. Read their advice and stay away from the common pitfalls they mention and you should be fine.
You dont have to come up with your own method, theres loads of different systems and methods on this site. Just search through them and find one that you feel comfortable with. Then become consistent with it.
I know these types of responses can be frustrating, all you want is an answer to a question you perceive as being simple right? I can sympathize, when i first started i probably asked a dozen of these types of questions in a dozen places and got the same kind of response. I think you should find a method and define your ability and you’ll probably find you’ll be able to answer your own question, ie. how many pips can [B]I[/B] make.
Aartamen: If i have learned anything in my Forex adventure thus far it is pips don’t matter. Can’t buy pizza with pips.
All traders need to find what fits there personality. As far as time frame, risk taking and such. A sclaper risk a lot $ per pip but aims for small pips gains and very short time frames. A postion trader normally trades less $ per pip but might be in a trade for weeks or even months.
The key is find your style, then put the $ amount per pip to achieve what your goals are.
Just my two cents. i personally trade 2 styles now 1 scalping another a bit longer but none more than a couple hours at most, normally a lot less 15 - 30 min. But this is just my style… I am currentlly trying to also include a longterm position strategey to my list. The funny thing is they all use almost the same parameters just different time frames.
Anyway, good luck when you find what fits you'll know what to do.
Ken