Sydney
21:00–06:00 GMT. Thinnest liquidity of the day. AUD and NZD crosses see the most activity; spreads elsewhere are typically at their widest.
Forex trading
The largest and most liquid market in the world, open continuously from Sunday evening to Friday close. Trade 60+ major, minor and exotic pairs with spreads from 0.0 pips and no dealing-desk intervention.
60+
Currency pairs
0.0
Spreads from, pips
1:500
Maximum leverage
24/5
Market hours
Live currency prices
Real time bid and ask across the major pairs, with the daily range and change.
Forex Matrix
Relative strength across every major cross at a glance read a row to see how one currency is faring against the rest.
Live currency spreads
Typical spreads on a Prime account under normal market conditions. Values are indicative and will vary with liquidity.
| Symbol | Description | Typical spread | Min spread | Swap long | Swap short | Max leverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EURUSD | Euro / US Dollar | 0.2 | 0.0 | -6.85 | +1.24 | 1:500 |
| GBPUSD | British Pound / US Dollar | 0.4 | 0.1 | -4.12 | -0.88 | 1:500 |
| USDJPY | US Dollar / Japanese Yen | 0.3 | 0.0 | +3.94 | -9.61 | 1:500 |
| USDCHF | US Dollar / Swiss Franc | 0.5 | 0.2 | +2.16 | -6.03 | 1:500 |
| AUDUSD | Australian Dollar / US Dollar | 0.4 | 0.1 | -4.55 | +0.72 | 1:500 |
| NZDUSD | New Zealand Dollar / US Dollar | 0.7 | 0.3 | -3.88 | +0.41 | 1:400 |
| USDCAD | US Dollar / Canadian Dollar | 0.6 | 0.2 | +0.94 | -4.27 | 1:500 |
| EURGBP | Euro / British Pound | 0.5 | 0.2 | -2.31 | -1.06 | 1:400 |
| EURJPY | Euro / Japanese Yen | 0.6 | 0.2 | -1.42 | -5.18 | 1:400 |
| GBPJPY | British Pound / Japanese Yen | 1.1 | 0.6 | +0.86 | -7.94 | 1:400 |
| AUDJPY | Australian Dollar / Japanese Yen | 1.0 | 0.5 | +1.12 | -6.40 | 1:400 |
| USDTRY | US Dollar / Turkish Lira | 28.0 | 18.0 | +142.60 | -238.10 | 1:100 |
| USDZAR | US Dollar / South African Rand | 42.0 | 26.0 | +68.20 | -121.40 | 1:100 |
| USDMXN | US Dollar / Mexican Peso | 38.0 | 22.0 | +54.80 | -96.70 | 1:100 |
Swap values are in account currency per standard lot and are subject to change daily. Triple swap is applied on Wednesday for most pairs.
The four trading sessions
Liquidity, spread and volatility all shift with the clock. Knowing which session you are trading into matters as much as the setup itself.
Tokyo
23:00–08:00 GMT. Yen crosses lead. Ranges tend to be tighter, which suits mean-reversion approaches more than breakout ones.
London
07:00–16:00 GMT. The deepest single session, accounting for the largest share of daily volume. Spreads are tightest and trends often establish here.
New York
12:00–21:00 GMT. US data lands early in this session. The 12:00–16:00 overlap with London is the highest-volume window of the day.
Understanding a currency pair
A forex quote prices one currency against another. In EUR/USD, the euro is the base currency and the US dollar the quote currency. A price of 1.0864 means one euro buys 1.0864 US dollars.
Buying the pair is a bet that the base currency strengthens relative to the quote. Selling is the reverse. Because you are always long one currency and short another, there is no directional bias built into the market a falling euro is simply a rising dollar.
Most pairs are quoted to five decimal places, with the fourth being the pip. Yen pairs are quoted to three, with the second being the pip. On a standard lot of 100,000 units, one pip is worth roughly $10.
Calculate pip valueHow a currency pair is quoted
Forex questions
Trading opens Sunday at 21:00 GMT and closes Friday at 21:00 GMT, running continuously in between. Times shift by an hour when daylight saving changes in the US and Europe.
Swap is the overnight financing cost or credit for holding a position past the daily rollover at 21:00 GMT. It reflects the interest rate differential between the two currencies. Wednesday rollover carries a triple charge to cover the weekend value date.
Spread reflects available liquidity. Around the daily rollover, during the thin Asian open, and in the seconds surrounding high-impact data releases, fewer market makers are quoting, so the gap between bid and offer widens.
0.01 lots, equal to 1,000 units of the base currency, on every account type. That makes one pip worth roughly $0.10 on most pairs.