The Most Popular Currency Pairs

There are five major currencies worldwide that are particularly popular and these are mostly major players in the global financial system. Thus a Forex trader will look for currency pairs that have relatively high volatility, thus moving up or down in value rather than remaining relatively static.

Money is made, but can be lost, on the Forex system by this fluctuation in movement of currencies. Currencies that remain reasonably stable offer much less opportunity to make a profit.

There are a number of currency pairs that are popular for traders. The most popular is the euro and US dollar, EUR/USD, where one euro is expressed as the market amount of dollars. The Eurozone is made up of 16 European countries, and many of these, including France and Germany, are major players in the financial and economic world.

Other popular currency pairs are the British pound (GBP) and the US dollar (USD), USD and the Japanese yen (JPY), USD and the Swiss franc (CHF), USD and the Canadian dollar (CAD), and EUR and GBP. Australian dollars also trade well. Most advisers and brokers advise against pairing currencies that are not particularly popular, especially when starting to trade.

As the global financial world begins to change due to new political and economic pressures, there may be opportunities in the future to look at different combinations of pairs for trading, though professional advice should be taken on the advisability of this.