Forex Currencies And Symbols
Symbols for all forex currencies commprise of three letters. The name of the country is denoted by the first two letters followed by the third and final letter, which abbreviates the the country’s currency.
So for example lets take the GBP. The GB is for United Kingdom and the ‘P' refers to the Pound. So quickly for the USD, the ‘US' denotes the United States and the ‘D' refers to the dollar.
The most popular forex currencies for which regular traders focus on are called “Majors”, with the not so common suitably called “minors”.
I have listed a short chart to demonstrate the current most popular traded currencies in the world.
Forex Currencies:
| Country | Nick Name | Symbol | Currency |
| United States | Buck | USD | Dollar |
| United Kingdom | Cable | GBP | Pound |
| Eurozone | Euro | EUR | Euro |
| Switzerland | Franc | CHF | Swissy |
| Canada | Loonie | CAD | Dollar |
| Japan | Yen | JPY | Yen |
| New Zealand | Kiwi | NZD | Dollar |
| Australia | Aussie | AUD | Dollar |
Major Pairs & Forex Currency Pairs
Do not confuse yourself with major forex currencies and major currency pairs. ‘Major Pairs' are those which combine the USD. The most popular traded pair is therefore the USDEUR, followed by pairs such as USDGBP and USDCAD.
Cross Pairs
A cross pair is refers to Currency pairs that do not involve the USD. The EUR/GBP is a good example of a widely traded cross pair.
Just to widen your knowledge a little further, any European currency pair minus the USD is referred to as a Euro Cross. So the EURCAD would be part of the EURO Cross Group. Other currency pairs in this group are EURGBP, EURCHF, EURNZD and EURAUD.
After this we have other currency groups of this kind. Trading pairs comprise of GBP crosses, JPY crosses, AUD crosses, NZD crosses and CHF crosses.