Pipettes: the fifth decimal that confuses everyone once

[Shadow Trader]

Most brokers quote five digits on EURUSD and three on JPY pairs. The last digit is a tenth of a pip, called a pipette or fractional pip. A spread of 12 on the platform is 1.2 pips, not 12.

Mixing the two up causes real losses. A stop of 50 "points" is five pips. A target typed in points when pips were meant ends up ten times too tight or too loose, and the difference is only noticed after a trade has gone wrong.

Expert advisors written for four-digit brokers misread the same setting on a five-digit feed, and a "10 pip" stop quietly becomes one pip. The reverse also happens, and a one pip stop becomes ten.

A quick check when moving to a new broker or platform: open a demo trade, set a stop of "10" in the order window, and look at how far away it actually lands on the chart.

Which one has caused a mix-up at some point, and what did it cost?