Should risk/reward ratio include spread

[JosephSheedy]

This may seem a silly issue but there seem to be many different opinions out there. If you risk 20 pips with a 2.5 spread (forex), should your risk reward be 20:60 pips or 45:135 pips (assuming a 1:3 potential), when considering spread fixed cost? Many seem to look for 20:60 which in my view does not correlate with the risk/reward scenario.

[Brendan Egan]

This may seem a silly issue but there seem to be many different opinions out there. If you risk 20 pips with a 2.5 spread (forex), should your risk reward be 20:60 pips or 45:135 pips (assuming a 1:3 potential), when considering spread fixed cost? Many seem to look for 20:60 which in my view does not correlate with the risk/reward scenario.

Joseph,
My apologies for the delay in responding to you-- I didn't get an email notification of your post for some reason and just saw it this evening.

I personally always take the spread into account in trading. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is Google's stock which almost always has a $0.30-$0.70 spread which is extremely large for the US stock market. This MUST be factored into your risk:reward. In Forex since the spreads are much more constant it is usually much easier to factor them into your actual risk:reward ratio.

-Brendan