Wednesday Oct 18 2023 12:34
3 min
A currency pair is, literally, a ‘pair’ of two currencies.
When you place any trade on the forex (foreign exchange) market, you do so as part of a currency pair, by speculating on the value of one currency against the other.
Join the 100.000s that have made markets.com their home for trading. Learn about trading as you grow your portfolio.
More power in our platforms
We currently cannot accept clients from your country. If you have received this message in error, please contact our support team at support@markets.com.
Contact Support
You’ll probably have seen currency pairs before. They look like this:
The order of the currencies isn’t random:
When you place a forex trade, you are always trading the price of the base currency against the quote currency.
So, if your pair is EUR/USD, you’re trading the value of the Euro against the US Dollar.
If your pair is USD/GBP, you’re trading the value of the US Dollar against the Euro.
And so on.
If you place a ‘long’ trade on the EUR/USD, then if the Euro increases in value against the US dollar, you will profit. If it decreases in value, you will lose money.
Vice versa, if you place a ‘short’ trade on the EUR/USD pair, and the Euro falls in value against the US dollar, you’ll profit. If it increases in value against the US Dollar, you’ll lose money.
According to data from BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey, the most three most popular currency pairs are:
Latest
View all
Thursday, 29 May 2025
5 min
Thursday, 29 May 2025
5 min
Thursday, 29 May 2025
4 min
EN
