Major Pairs

[brownsfan019 17]

More or less for my reference, what are the major pairs to look at in the FX area? I tried to find it in other threads but didn't find a good list of the major pairs.

 

Thanks.

[Flojomojo 10]

The Triennial Central Bank Survey results you can find here under the point "Trading characteristics".

 

Cheers,

Flojo

[Anna-Maria 10]

If you’re talking liquidity, spreads/costs & shipping thru retail, then the $INDEX main constituents will generally keep you safe:

 

EURUSD

USDJPY

GBPUSD (in that order)

 

Popular pairs out there would also fall under:

USDCHF

USDCAD

AUDUSD

EURGBP

 

You then got the cross instrument combination pairs which make up the Euro….British Pound….Jap Yen….Swissy etc

 

Ie:

GBPJPY

GBPCHF

EURJPY

EURCHF etc etc………

 

 

Again, depending who you use & their spread/size/cost deals, will impact on your aims & trade strategy intent.

 

If you’re in doubt regards costs, liquidity, key time zone exposure, sizings etc on your chosen instrument(s), just talk to your brokers & tell them what you’re looking to do.

 

If it’s a half decent shop they’ll have switched on reps available to talk you thru your objectives

[Flojomojo 10]

Hi brownsfan,

also have a look at this study from the bank of england which I just stumbled across here. It basically adds the numbers to Anna-Maria´s post and is more compact than the BIS study.

Flojo

[daedalus 10]

The 9 "Majors" are technically the:

 

EURCHF

EURGBP

EURUSD

EURJPY

GBPUSD

AUDUSD

USDCAD

USDCHF

USDJPY

 

And the "10th" that is being traded more heavily and gaining in popularity all over seems to be the GBPJPY. Roughly 5 pip spreads but HUGE movement and compared to the other spreads right now in the spot market with recent volatility its actually a bargain of a pair. A lot of $$ movement for a 5 pip spread.

[traderkeith 10]

Typical spreads for EURO/USD should be under a pip now and this currency is the major of the majors. Traders like The Rumpled One love to trade inside the spread and I have been able to get regular fills of under a pip. So the fact that a load of retail brokers out there still charging 2 - 3 pips shows how the retail market still tolerates high spreads real well. ACM is charging 3 pips! That adds up to a lot of money if you are high frequency trading. If not it doesn't matter so much.

[tlfx 10]

So far i see the EURUSD is the choice of most traders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sneo 10]

From an Interbank perspective -

Majors against USD:

EURUSD

GBPUSD

AUDUSD

USDJPY

USDCHF (not so sure)

 

Majors Crosses:

EURJPY (narrow spread due to popularity in EBS)

GBPJPY

AUDJPY

 

Any pair against NZD has a wide spread due to the lack of liquidity.

[Kiwi 16]

I had always believed that the majors were crosses with USD which equates to the available currency futures and the use of the USD as the standard currency up until the rise of the EUR recently. Below is Wikipedia's extract from the Triennial Central Bank Survey (December 2007), Bank for International Settlements.

 

 

So the majors become EURUSD, JPYUSD, GBPUSD, CHFUSD, AUDUSD and, given that the large players are now trading EUR directly against JPY, EURJPY.

 

Other USD crosses might technically be majors (with reduced spreads) but you can see by % traded why the spreads rise dramatically away from EURUSD.

 

All others, GBPJPY, included must be crosses.

[tlfx 10]

Wow nice one Kiwi!

 

[Kiwi 16]

Adding to it tlfx I did a "liquidity chart" by multiplying the percentages out to give "pair liquidity". The raw data is at the top. The information at the bottom shows how liquid the pair is compared with what I would consider the minimum tradable liquidity audusd.

 

I always laugh when people talk about trading nzdaud. Its a little like wanting to trade the lumber future - the trends look great but liquidity/slippage and in the case of lumber, lock limit costs are very very high. No offense if you insist on trading it of course

 

[sneo 10]

just to add to kiwi's post.

 

below chart show estimated market shares of each pairs, summing to the indicated market share. also the relative liquidity to eurusd (eurusd as 1.00).

[fxlabrat 10]

Sorry i'm about to ask a newbie question.

 

What's the best pair to start for a newbie?

 

Thanks.

[daedalus 10]

eurusd. most traded pair. that or gbpusd. most systems/methods you'll find trade one or the other.