What is the Forex Base Currency?

To the uninitiated, the Forex market can be difficult to understand. It can seem as though people who are "in the know" are speaking in a different language and in many ways they are. To be successful in Forex trading, it's important to learn the speak the language. To do that, there are a few terms you'll need to understand. One of these terms is the forex base currency.

To undestand the Forex base currency, you will first need to gain an understanding of another term: "currency pair." The quotation and pricing structure of all of the currencies traded in the Forex market today are based on currency pairs. The first currency listed in the pair is known as the Forex base currency and the second is known as the quote currency. When shown together, the currency pair shows how much one would need of the quote currency to purchase one unit of the base currency.

Forex trades involve the simultaneous buying and selling of currency. When one currency is bought, another is sold. However, and this is where many people get confused, the currency pair (the Forex base currency plus the quote currency) should be viewed as a single unit. When one buys a currency pair, they are essentially buying the base currency using the quote currency. The quote currency, thereForex, is sold and the base currency is bought. Inversely, when you sell your currency pair, you are selling the base currency and receiving the quote currency. When you see an "ask" or selling price listed for a currency pair, price represents the amount you will receive in the quote currency when you sell one unit of the base currency.

Let's look at a concrete example to illustrate these concepts. Let's say there is a USD/EUR currency pair quoted as having an ask of 1.3. If you were to purchase this currency pair, for every 1.3 euros you sell, you receive 1 US dollar. In reverse, if you were to sell the currency pair, you would receive 1.3 euros for every US dollar you sold. Note that in the second example, the currency pair would be EUR/USD (with the Forex base currency being the euro in this case) and the quote currency would be the dollar.

In most cases in the Forexx market, the US dollar is consider the Forexx base currency. When you look at a quote, you should think of it as an indication of the worth of one US dollar in the other (quote) currency. When the US dollar is the Forexx base currency and the quote goes up that essentially means that the value of the US dollar has bolstered against the other currency and the other currency has, thereForex, gone down in value against the American dollar. There are exceptions to this, however.

In currency pairs where the base currency is the British pound or the Australian dollar, a rising quote is an indication that the US dollar is weakening and will thereForex buy less of the of the other currency. No matter what the Forexx base currency is, the rule is this: if the quote goes higher, the base currency is gaining strength If a quote goes down, the base currency is losing ground. Posted by Forex articles and reviews online.