Forex Terms

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CA Manish K Dhoot

CA B. Com NCFM CPCM

5015 Points Joined February 2008

What Does Currency Pair Mean?
The quotation and pricing structure of the currencies traded in the forex market: the value of a currency is determined by its comparison to another currency. The first currency of a currency pair is called the "base currency", and the second currency is called the "quote currency". The currency pair shows how much of the quote currency is needed to purchase one unit of the base currency.

All forex trades involve the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another, but the currency pair itself can be thought of as a single unit, an instrument that is bought or sold. If you buy a currency pair, you buy the base currency and sell the quote currency. The bid (buy price) represents how much of the quote currency is needed for you to get one unit of the base currency. Conversely, when you sell the currency pair, you sell the base currency and receive the quote currency. The ask (sell price) for the currency pair represents how much you will get in the quote currency for selling one unit of base currency.

For example, if the USD/EUR currency pair is quoted as being USD/EUR = 1.5 and you purchase the pair, this means that for every 1.5 euros that you sell, you purchase (receive) US$1. If you sold the currency pair, you would receive 1.5 euros for every US$1 you sell. The inverse of the currency quote is EUR/USD, and the corresponding price would be EUR/USD = 0.667, meaning that US$0.667 would buy 1 euro.

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CA Manish K Dhoot

CA B. Com NCFM CPCM

5015 Points Joined February 2008

Decentralized Market

A market structure that consists of a network of various technical devices that enable investors to create a marketplace without a centralized location. In a decentralized market, technology provides investors with access to various bids/ask prices and makes it possible for them to deal directly with other investors/dealers rather than with a given exchange

The foreign exchange market is an example of a decentralized market because there is no one physical location where investors go to buy or sell currencies. Forex traders can use the internet to check the quotes of various currency pairs from different dealers from around the world.

CA Manish K Dhoot

CA B. Com NCFM CPCM

5015 Points Joined February 2008

Exchange Rate

The price of one country's currency expressed in another country's currency. In other words, the rate at which one currency can be exchanged for another. For example, the higher the exchange rate for one euro in terms of one yen, the lower the relative value of the yen.

In most financial papers, currencies are expressed in terms of U.S. dollars, while the dollar is commonly compared to the Japanese yen, the British pound and the euro. As of the beginning of 2006, the exchange rate of one U.S. dollar for one euro was about 0.84, which means that one dollar can be exchanged for 0.84 euros.