How Forex Traders Get Paid

Anyone who has looked into Forex trading a little, will know that it is all about trading currencies; buying low and selling high. By buying one currency at a low price and selling it at a higher price, you make a profit; this is easy to understand. However, not everyone knows exactly how Forex traders get paid; Forex traders earn their money through what are known as price interest points, which are more commonly known as pips.

Pips are usually expressed as decimals. It will depend on the currency pairs being traded, but pips are generally the last numbers of the decimal. For example, if you were to buy USD/GBP at 1.6500 and then sell it at 1.6550, you would earn a profit of +50 pips.

Once a Forex trader earns a profit in pips, the pips earned will be converted into whichever currency the Forex trader's account works in primarily.

After the pips earned have been converted into the individual Forex trader's primary currency, they will be ready for withdrawal. All good Forex brokers will offer multiple deposit/withdrawal methods; many online Forex brokers work with such money transfer methods as PayPal. It's usually very quick and easy to withdraw your earnings from your broker's trading platform, though when starting out you will probably want to reinvest your earnings back into your Forex trading career so that you can potentially earn even more.

You should also remember that you can trade on margin, using leverage to increase both the potential risks and rewards of your trades. Forex traders can also trade standard lots to increase their potential risks and rewards, if they were only trading mini or perhaps even micro lots before. Lots are units; a standard lot is a unit worth $100,000, a mini lot is a unit worth $10,000 and a micro lot is a unit worth $1,000. With standard lots, pips are worth $10.00 each. With mini lots, pips are worth $1.00 each and quite obviously with micro lots, pips are worth only $0.10 each. So if you were trading standard lots, going back to the previous example, if you earned a profit of +50 pips, you would have earned a profit of $500.

So pips are actually very simple. They are a simple way of calculating profits and losses across the board; they are used with all currency pairs.

In conclusion, Forex traders profit with price interest points, which are more commonly known as pips. When they buy a currency pair at a lower price and sell the same currency pair at a higher price, they will earn a profit worth a certain amount of pips. These pips are then converted into the individual Forex trader's primary currency and are made ready for withdrawal, or of course reinvestment. You will definitely remember your first profits, but as already mentioned it is wise to reinvest your Forex trading profits, so that you can let your account grow. If you really want to be safe, you could gradually withdraw your profits until you break-even. This way you will be able to trade with profits only and not risk losing any of your own money overall; many Forex traders do this when starting out and it can be a great way of preventing your emotions from taking your trading behaviors over.

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