Currency pair

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, quote currency or currency and the currency that is quoted in relation is called the base currency or transaction currency. Currency pairs are generally written by concatenating the ISO currency codes (ISO 4217) of the base currency and the counter currency, and then separating the two codes with a slash. Alternatively the slash may be omitted, or replaced by either a dot or a dash. 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. Here, EUR is the base currency and USD is the quote currency(counter currency). This means that 1 Euro can be exchangeable to 1.25 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. Currency quotations use the abbreviations for currencies that are prescribed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in standard ISO 4217. The major currencies and their designation in the foreign exchange market are the US dollar (USD), euro (EUR), Japanese yen (JPY), British pound (GBP), Australian dollar (AUD), Canadian dollar (CAD), and the Swiss franc (CHF). As has been mentioned previously, the quotation EUR/USD 1.2500 (or EURUSD 1.2500) means that one euro is exchanged for 1.2500 US dollars. If the quote changes from EUR/USD 1.2500 (or EURUSD 1.2500) to 1.2510, the euro has increased in relative value, because either the dollar buying strength has weakened or the euro has strengthened, or both. On the other hand, if the EUR/USD (or EURUSD) quote changes from 1.2500 to 1.2490 the euro has become relatively weaker than the dollar.