Quote from drasfs:
True. What really matters are not how many pips you can make, but how you can keep your losses to a minimum, and how many winners you can make.
Im getting sick of knowing everything in theory, but still perform like a cow on the field.
One of the most important things that really matters is Expectancy: % wins x average win + % losses x average loss. Disregard breakevens for this purpose.
Another thing that really matters is your frequency of trades. How many at-bats do you get per day, week, month, quarter, year?
Positive Expectancy + Adequate Frequency = Holy Grail.
For example, if you had to choose from these 3 trading methods:
% wins, average win, average loss, # of trades a month
1) 35%, $1,000, $154, 16
2) 50%, $1,000, $500, 20
3) 80%, $1,000, $2,750, 32
which would you choose and why, everything else being equal?
In my view, expectancy could well be one of the most under-appreciated, inadequately understood, if not ignored altogether, elements of trading. Have you read Van Tharp's very first book, "Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom"? If not, I cannot recommend it highly enough (never mind the cheesy title), in part because of its expectancy discussion. There are more in-depth treatments of expectancy and other elements of trading elsewhere, but that book lays down a strong, logical foundation to build on.
The other things you mention may or not be important at all. It is entirely possible and, depending on your trading personality, may be even preferable, to have a great system / methodology which has either some sizable (relatively infrequent) losses or only a few (relatively large) wins.
To get back to your original post... as for that nearly universal emphasis on pips in the forex world -- no, make that, Obsession with PIPS -- I always think of it as "opium for the people". Pips only begin to matter in the context of key questions such as "at what leverage?" and "how much risk?" The further you get away from that externally imposed, tunnel vision, pips-driven mindset, the better off you are going to be as a currency trader.