What is Currency pair ?

Today, we should start to go back to basics a bit.

What exactly is Currency pair ? Day in day out, we keep hearing our friends, investors, speculators talk about pairs pairs pairs...BUT what are currency pairs ?

Even this blog site is FOREX-PAIRS.BLOGSPOT.COM

Now, i will explain with help from extracts from the internet information.

From Wikipedia,

A currency pair depicts a quotation of two different currencies. The first currency in the pair is the base currency or transaction currency. The second currency in the pair is labelled quote currency, payment currency or counter currency. Such a quotation depicts how many units of the counter currency are needed to buy one unit of the base currency.

For example the quotation EUR/USD 1.2500 means that one euro is exchanged for 1.25 US dollar. If the quote moves from EUR/USD 1.2500 to EUR/USD 1.2510, the euro is getting stronger and the dollar weaker. On the other hand if the EUR/USD quote moves from 1.2500 to 1.2490 the euro is getting weaker while the dollar is getting stronger.

Majors, majors, majors...what are they ?

Majors are the most liquid and widely traded currency pairs in the world. Trades involving majors make up about 90% of total Forex trading.

The Majors are: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, AUD/USD and USD/CAD.

GBP/USD is the only currency pair with its own name. It is known as "Cable", which has its origins from the days when a cable under the Atlantic synchronized the GBP/USD rate between the London and New York markets. But there are also lots of abbreviations for other currency pairs such as:

• AUD/USD "Aussie"
  
• EUR/USD "Euro"
  
• GBP/JPY "Geppy"
  
• NZD/USD "Kiwi"
  
• USD/CAD "Loonie"
  
• USD/CHF "Swissy"
  
• USD/JPY "Gopher"
  
• USD/CAD "Beaver"

This is so incredible. Those majors are exactly what i am watching daily on my FOREX CHALLENGE.

Now i know more. A bit of basics a day will hopefully keep my losses away.