A currency pair is the quotation of the relative value of a currency unit against the unit of another currency in the foreign exchange market. The currency that is used as the reference is called the counter currency or quote currency and the currency that is quoted in relation is called the base currency or transaction currency.
Currency pairs are sometimes then written by concatenating the ISO currency codes (ISO 4217) of the base currency and the counter currency, separating them with a slash character. Often the slash character is omitted. A widely traded currency pair is the relation of the euro against the US dollar, designated as EUR/USD. The quotation EUR/USD 1.2500 means that one euro is exchanged for 1.2500 US dollars.
The most traded currency pairs in the world are called the Majors. They involve the currencies euro, US dollar, Japanese yen, pound sterling, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, and the Swiss franc.
Read more about Currency Pair: Syntax and Quotation, Base Currency, The Majors, Nicknames, Cross Pairs, Trading
Famous quotes containing the words currency and/or pair:
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)