Per-Trade Pips Axis (symbol points)
The Pips axis expresses each trade in symbol-specific points (e.g. EURUSD 0.0001 = 1 pip). Only meaningful for a single symbol — summing pips across different instruments is not comparable, so this axis is shown only when one symbol is selected.
- Computed from
- Data series
- Scope
- Single report
- Range
- Any real number
- Direction
- Context-dependent
Per-trade metrics (Win Rate, Profit Factor, Expectancy, MAE/MFE…) each summarize your individual trades, and a single trade's result can be expressed on four different axes — four units for the same outcome. Picking the axis changes what units the number is in — and sometimes the formula. This page covers the Pips axis and how it relates to the other three.
The Pips axis
pips = (close_price − open_price) / pip_size
- close_price − open_price
- the raw price move of the trade
- pip_size
- the symbol's point size — the smallest conventional price step for that instrument (e.g. 0.0001 for EURUSD, 0.01 for JPY pairs)
pip_size is symbol-specific, the same pip count means different things on different instruments — 30 pips on EURUSD ≠ 30 pips on USDJPY ≠ 30 pips on gold. Summing or averaging pips across symbols is therefore meaningless, which is why EquityTruth restricts this axis to single-symbol selections. For any multi-symbol view use [Pips%](/glossary/trade-axis-pips-pct) (basis points), which is cross-comparable.Pips is the familiar everyday forex unit ("I caught 50 pips") — but it has a fatal flaw for analysis: it's not comparable across symbols, because a pip is a different fraction of price on every instrument. It's intuitive for a single pair and useless for a portfolio. That's why it's gated to single-symbol views, and why Pips% exists as its cross-symbol cousin.
The four axes side by side
axis measures applies to ──────── ──────────────────────── ────────────── Return % trade vs account balance any selection P&L $ trade in account currency any selection Pips% price move in bp any (cross-sym) Pips price move in symbol pts single symbol
- Return (%) — size-normalized; a trade's result relative to the balance it risked.
- P&L ($) — the literal money the trade made or lost; reflects position size and account growth.
- Pips% (basis points) —
(close/open − 1) × 10000; the price move itself, comparable across symbols, independent of how much was risked. - Pips (symbol points) — the move in instrument-specific points; only meaningful when a single symbol is selected, since pips aren't comparable across instruments.
Axis vs equity basis — don't conflate them
New here? You can skip this — it's a disambiguation for users coming from the equity charts. A common confusion: "Return" and "P&L" appear in both the equity world and the trade world. They are different dimensions:
| Equity basis | Trade axis | |
|---|---|---|
| Chooses | which cumulative curve | which unit per trade |
| Members | Return, TWR, P&L | Return, P&L, Pips%, Pips |
| TWR? | yes | no |
| Pips? | no | yes |
So the equity world has no concept of pips at all — it tracks money-weighted curves; pips live exclusively on the trade axis, as a per-trade price-move unit. Same broad picture, different machinery.