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Which currencies can I trade?
This short video will introduce you to the currency pairs most popular among forex traders.
Much like exchanging money overseas in FOREX, every transaction involves the purchase of one currency and the simultaneous sale of another.
To make it easy, FOREX markets refer to trading currencies in pairs, with names that combine the two different countries being traded against each other.
The seven most frequently traded currency pairs are referred to as the majors. By some estimates, these seven major currency pairs make up seventy five to eighty percent of daily FOREX trading volume.
The majors include the Euro versus the U.S. Dollar, the Great British Pound versus the U.S. Dollar, the U.S. Dollar versus the Japanese Yen, the U.S. Dollar versus the Swiss Franc...
...The U.S. Dollar versus the Canadian Dollar, the Australian Dollar versus the U.S. Dollar, the New Zealand Dollar versus the U.S. Dollar.
You may have noticed that all the majors include the U.S. Dollar. That's because the U.S. Dollar is the central currency against which other currencies are traded.
What does that mean? Quite simply it means that the vast majority of all FOREX market transactions involve the U.S. Dollar.
There are lots of other currency pairs that don't include the U.S. Dollar, but include the other major currencies traded against each other...
...like the Australian Dollar against the Japanese Yen, the Euro against the British Pound, or the Canadian Dollar against the Japanese Yen.
These are referred to as 'Cross Currency' pairs.
So how do you choose which currency pairs to trade?
Most traders new to the FOREX market tend to focus on one or two currency pairs to start.
It often makes sense to start with the most popular currency pairs, like the Euro, or Japanese Yen against the U.S. Dollar, since there is so much more information available about the underlying economies.
We've made it easy to access timely, relevant market data and information for any currency pair that you're interested in.
Check out FOREX.com's currency pair pages to catch up on the most recent news, events and research, view charts and enter trades.
Continue your FOREX learning with the next video in this series.