How to Calculate the Number of Pips on MT4
This is how you can calculate the pips between two points on the price chart of the MT4 platform:
- Method #1: You can place a horizontal line at the first and another one at the second level and calculate the distance of these two lines by deducting the lower line value from the higher one.
.
For example, the distance of 1.25661 and 1.10896 levels on EUR/USD chart is 1476.5 pips:
.
1.25661 – 1.10896 = 0.14765
.
You have to multiply 0.14765 by 10000 when the currency pair price has 5 decimals on your platform (e.g. 1.25661):
.
0.14765 x 10000 = 1476.5 pips
.
If the price has 4 decimals, then you have to multiply the deduction result by 10000.
.
This method which is a little harder and time consuming, can be used both on MT4 and also platforms that don’t have any pip calculation tools.
.
Please scroll down to watch the video.
. - Method #2: MT4 supports a tool which is very easy and fast. To use this tool, you have to press the mouse wheel to turn on the crosshair cursor. Maybe you have never done that before. We are used to use the mouse wheel to scroll up and down the web pages. When we scroll the mouse wheel forth, the page scrolls up, and when we scroll the mouse wheel back, the page scrolls down. But mouse wheel has another function too:
.
Over your mouse pointer on the MT4 price chart, and “press” the mouse wheel. You should hear a click sound, and then the mouse crosshair cursor will appear on the chart:
Don’t worry if your mouse doesn’t support this feature. There is still another way to have the mouse crosshair cursor toggled on the price chart: There is a “Crosshair” tool on the Line Studies toolbar at the top. Just click on it and the mouse crosshair cursor will appear:
Now that the crosshair is on, move the crosshair cursor to one of the points on the price chart, press and hold the mouse left button, and drag the cursor to the other point while you are still holding the mouse left button when the cursor reaches the other button.
.
You will see three numbers at the right side of the cursor. The first number is the number of the candlesticks or bars that are placed between the start and end points of the crosshair movement that you just did. The second number is the distance of two price levels in points (you have to divide it by 10 to have it in pips if currency pairs prices have 5 decimals on your platform). The third number shows the price of the level the crosshair cursor is.
Unlike most trading platforms, it is very easy to measure the number of pips between two points of the price chart on MT4. It is very important to do that when you want to set the stop loss and target orders. For example, you want to know how many pips is from your entry level to the level you want to set the stop loss.
The below video shows you how to use both of the above methods to calculate the pips on MT4:
I really liked it. Thanks for sharing with us. It is one of those things which I was looking for long time.
Thank you Singh.
Very useful, never heard before…I keep going to read this site!
Thank you Andrea, and welcome to LuckScout.
Thanks Chris.
Can you tell us how to set a trailing stop loss please and is there anyway to make the pip numbers in the right margin of MT4 larger. They are so small I have to remove my glasses to read them.
Hi Barbara,
I will write an article about trailing stop loss.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to change the size of those numbers. The only way is that you lower your monitor resolution to see those numbers bigger. But this makes the image so ugly.
Thanks for the future article(s)
I’m new here so I can’t tell anything important yet. Hope in the next future to show results from this learning path!
Chris,
You are amazing! Yesterday night i was having a problem with calculating pips. Following day, you have given me the solution. No words for your great work!
Thank you Krishan.
hi, dear Chris in the MT4 and in the insert section there are tools like ( gann – Fibonacci – channels – … ), do we have to plan in the future to learn and study them.
Hi Moaied,
We use the Fibonacci levels, but things like Gann are useless.
Hi Chris,
Your website is always adding new brain cells to my brain. Thank you for this. Thank you for your awesome website and generosity to share such highly valuable information. After 2 years of highly volatile “trading” going nowhere, I have decided to start afresh and my 6 month journey will be LuckScout.com from today.
Lutendo
Thank you Lutendo, and welcome to LuckScout.
Good tip, thk’s
Hi Chris,
The crosshair can be toggled via the toolbar too. Instead of clicking the mouse scroll. Because, i have come across mouse without scroll (mini one – laptops usage) and also some mouse with scroll but really arent click-able.
Just sayin so that those with that kind of mouse dont skip this useful tip.
Regards
Sha
Hi Sha,
Thank you. I had forgotten about than tool. I added it to the article.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for sharing this useful tool with us.
I was thinking about an useful tool to trade multiple and simultaneously orders after the news release.
The idea it is like this:
on a particular news we can anticipate if the direction of the market, but we never know the vitality that will happen during the news release. So to prevent this if there will be a script or something similar we can anticipate and create some orders in advance, after on the right time with just one click we put them on the market.
Do you know if on MT4 we can do that or if there is any script to do it?
Regards
Julio
Hi Julio,
You can ask a programmer to develop and EA that do it for you.
Hi Chris
Thanks for the write up
You are welcome Bright.
“”””what is the other MT4 related topic you want me to write
about?””””
hi Chris,
how about how to back test an. EA (EXPERT ADVISOR ) Or strategy on MT4….. THANKS
Hi Oluwayemisi,
Sure! I will add this to my to do list.
Hi Oluwayemsi and Chris,
What I found very useful is the step by step tool for testing a strategy. Slide back on any chart and to analyse
candle by candle until you locate the appropriate setup.
Simulate a trade and continue with the step tool and observe the result.
Appreciate this to the bone.
Regards
Appreciate this LuckScout site to the bone
Thank you Jan.
thank for the right up!
good day,
many tks for ur daily pairs analysis.
there is an easier way to find out ur pips position on an open trade.
there is a plug in for mt4 called PIPSOMETER. when u download it it displays ur pips position permanently on the upper right hand side of the chart.
i will email the plug in to you
regards
tony
Thank you Tony.
Hi Chris,
Inferring from the formula discussed above, are currency pairs with 2 & 3 decimal places multiplied with 10 & 100 respectively?
Abduljalal,
Currency pairs with 2 decimals don’t need any calculation. The number shows the pip number.
In currency pairs with 3 decimals it has to be divided by 10.
Ho Chris, I would like to write an article, to help, but It is not easy to find something that I know that you have never talked about here 🙂
I’m just registered to your site, after reading some of your articles. First of all, I want to compliment you. I’ve read a lot of forex sites, and this is definitely the best education site I’ve ever seen. I now know what is the best money management to follow if I want to be successful and limit my risk, but I’ve still problems to locate the target and stop loss positions. My broker ask me to select the currency values (the decimal numbers) where I want to put my stop loss and target. If I’ve get properly your article, I want my target to be twice my stop loss, I have to take as reference the value in points. The value in points of my target has to be twice the stop loss’s and at its opposite side. I hope you will tell me if I’m right. Kind regards and sorry for my bad english.
Andrew,
When you want the TP to be x2 of the SL, then you have to calculate where to set the TP. For example, you have a long position and your entry price is 1.2543 and your SL is placed 1.2500 which is 43 pips below your entry. Therefore, your TP has to be 86 pips which is 1.2629:
1.2543 + 0.0086 = 1.2629
Hi Chris,
From this example, the difference between 1.2543 & 1.2500 is 0.0043. Then multiplying by the 1000 that you taught in the above article, 0.0043 × 1000 should be 4.3 and not 43 or am I missing something? Perhaps I do. please also try & explain more on the role of decimal point on currency pairs with two & three decimals.
Thank you.
Abduljalal,
Thank you. That was a typo. It is 10000.
Thanks for your reply, sir. Your example is about pair with 4 decimals, but what about the pairs with 5 decimals in them? I have a short position, my my entry price is 0.70945. My stop loss is 0.71676, which is 72 pips above my entry price. I want my Take profit to be twice my stop loss:
So, I should do: 0.70945-0.00144 (because 72×2=144). Which means my take profit should be put at 0.70801. Am I right? Can you, please, tell me how do you usually do your calculations? Do you have a digital calculator on your platform? Kind regards and thank you again.
It is very easy and you don’t need a digital calculator. When there is 5 decimals, then 1 pips means 10 points. So 144 pips TP is 1440 points. Therefore, your TP should be placed at 0.69505:
0.70945 – 0.01440 = 0.69505
Interesting. Can you explain me why 1 pip mean 10 point where there are 5 decimals? I didn’t know it. And about the currencies with 4 or 3 decimals? Do I have to make the calculation you did in your first comment? Thanks for your kindness.
Hi Chris, the crosshair is great, but I have problems locating the price level where I had put the take profit. The tp was at 1.23093, but I can’t find it, the crosshair jump automatically at 1.23072, so I cannot count my pips precisely. How can I do? Is there some other simpler way to calculate my pips? Thanks. I really need your help.
It is the first time I hear this problem. MT4 places dashed line where the entry, stop loss and TP are. If you over your mouse pointer on each dashed line, then you will see the order info.
Hi Chris, this is really killing me. I mean, there must be something wrong. I just took another position, to try again. The dashed lines appeared on my chart, but when I click on them, the info they give me, they’re untrue: they say I have a 351 pips take profit and a potenzial profit of 28.63 bucks. That doensn’t make sense. I counted a take profit of 29 pips. Besides, if they were really 351 pips, it would be a profit of 351 bucks, not 28, cause when you take a 0,1 lot, one pip is 1 buck. What’s the problem? I’m so confused. I’m using an ECN broker called Ajax financial.
Can you share a screenshot from the problem?
T I think you are counting 5 decimal places. You need to ignore the last digit.
But when you divide the decimal by 10 in order to know your sl and tk profit pips, do you ignore the last decimal?
Chris, the broker sent me an email, telling they’re not active anymore. So, I think that’s the reason the platform keeps giving me false order data. Now, I have to try another broker and see what happen. I thought the hard part were learning to recognize the good trade setups, but it’s actually finding a good broker. Really depressing. Thanks anyways for your precious help.
Someone can tell me why, when you open a new metatrader account, it always gives you two password? What is the purpose of the second password?Thanks.
The second password which is called investor, is a read only password. It means if you login through it, you can only see the trades and open positions, but you cannot open or close any positions. It is for the time that you want to share your account activities with others, but you don’t want them to be able to do anything on the account.
Hi Chris,
Thank you so much of the above reply to Andrew2, it help me much of my practice trading journey.
Best Regards,
Alejandro
Hi Chris
Thanks for the explanation but my question is do you always have to multiply by 10000 as you have it in your narration?
Edwin,
When there are 5 decimals, yes.
i had a lot of problems using 5 digits so i dropped the fifth digit and calculate with just 4 digits. much simpler and quicker.if you want to use the 5 digits then put a decimal point after the fourth digit on both numbers. also put a decimal point before both numbers and not just one number or you will get some crazy results. otherwise forget the decimal point and subtract or add the numbers as in any math calculation. works for me, so hope it helps. 21 typos i had to correct or you wouldn’t be able to read this. hello to everyone. len
Thank you Len.
Yes, that is a good idea.
Len
I have the same problem.
Would you be able to give as an example how to go from 5 digit to 4 digit.
Thanks
Danuta
Great site and great info! Happy that I stumbled upon it! Didn’t know about the mousewheel-trick, very convenient!
Keep up the good work guys you rock 😀
Thank you Patrick and welcome to our site 🙂