How To Start Trading The Forex Market? (Part 5)
What are *PIPS* ?
Currencies are traded on a price/ point (pip) system. Each currency pair has its own pip value.
When you see a FOREX price quote, you’ll see something listed like this:
EUR/USD 1.2210/13
Explanation:
a) If you want to BUY the EUR/USD ( meaning you BUY EUROS and SELL US$ ) you buy 100,000 EUROS and you SELL 122,130 US$, or in other words you receive
122,130 US$ for 100,000 EUROS.
B) If you want to SELL the EUR/USD ( meaning you SELL EUROS and BUY US$ ) you buy 122,100 US$ and sell 100,000 EUROS, or in other words you receive 100,000 EUROS for 122,100 US$.
The difference between the bid and the ask price is referred to as the spread. In the example above, the spread is 3 or 3 pips.
Since the US dollar is the centerpiece of the FOREX market, it is normally considered the ‘base’ currency for quotes. In the “Majors”, this includes USD/JPY, USD/CHF and USD/CAD. For these currencies and many others, quotes are expressed as a unit of $1 USD per the second currency quoted in the pair.
For example a quote of USD/CHF...