Think of a taxi ride. The road you drive is your pips. The price per km is your lot size. Road times price gives the fare, which is your result. A bigger lot is a higher price, so the same road costs, or earns, more.

A pip is a small step used to measure how far price moves. For gold (XAU/USD) most brokers count one pip as 0.10, so 4,150.00 to 4,150.10 is one pip. Brokers differ, so check yours.

To count pips, find the distance between two prices. 4,150.00 up to 4,152.00 is a $2.00 move, which is 20 pips. More pips means a bigger move, in either direction.

Pip rules are not the same everywhere. The examples here use the common setup for gold. Your broker lists its own rules in the contract details, so look there before you trade.

On TradingView, pick the measure tool from the left toolbar. Click where the move starts, then click where it ends. It shows the price change, for example 2.00. On gold one pip is 0.10, so 2.00 is 20 pips. Hold Shift, then click and drag, for a quick measure. For every button, open our TradingView guide.

Pips measure the distance between your entry and the current price. Buy gold at 4,150.00 and price rises to 4,151.50: you are 15 pips in your favour. If it falls to 4,148.50 instead, you are 15 pips against you.

Many platforms show gold with two decimals, like 4,150.25. The last digit is a tenth of a pip, so you can ignore it for now. Forex pairs count differently: on EUR/USD a pip is the fourth decimal, 0.0001.

A lot is the size of your trade. A standard lot is 1.00, a mini lot (0.10) is ten times smaller and a micro lot (0.01) is a hundred times smaller. Most beginners start with the smallest.

On gold, one pip is about $0.10 on a micro lot (0.01), $1 on a mini lot (0.10) and $10 on a standard lot (1.00). So 20 pips is about $2, $20 and $200. These numbers are examples.

You buy 0.01 lot of gold (XAU/USD) at 4,150.00. Price rises to 4,153.00, which is 30 pips. At about $0.10 per pip that is +$3.00. If price fell 30 pips instead, you would lose about $3.00. These numbers are examples.

Pips measure the move. Lots set the stakes. The same move wins or loses more on a bigger lot, in either direction.