Forex Trivia??

[akeakamai]

Hey, does anyone know why the pairs are quoted as they are? ie. USD/JPY and not JPY/USD. I assume they've been like this for awhile, but who decided which way to put them?? There doesn't seem to be a pattern, except that the EUR gets to be the base currency all the time.

As you can tell, this isn't very important haha. Just curious here..

[shadow]

It's already been posted about which is greater than others, but I'm not sure why.

http://www.babypips.com/forums/newbi...on-couple.html

[rhodytrader]

When all this stuff was originally decided, clearly the British Commonwealth currencies were ranked as most important, which is why GBP and AUD are generally the base currency. USD slotted in to the second position. At that time, of course, there was no EUR. The European continental currencies were always listed as the non-base one against GBP, AUD, and USD, but were the base against the JPY. I can't say if that was a conscious decision made somewhere back in time, or if those conventions just sort of developed over time.

I wasn't around for the earlier decision, but the one to make EUR the base currency in all pair quote was a conscious one by market participants. Some folks disagreed at the time, but it was (I think) based on the size of the market for Euros as compared to other currencies. Since there are now more Euros in circulation than any other currency, seems like they made a decent decision.

[toptick07]

Originally Posted by akeakamai

Hey, does anyone know why the pairs are quoted as they are? ie. USD/JPY and not JPY/USD. I assume they've been like this for awhile, but who decided which way to put them?? There doesn't seem to be a pattern, except that the EUR gets to be the base currency all the time.

As you can tell, this isn't very important haha. Just curious here..

Try a web search of = Bretton-Woods Accord + forex

There are plenty of resources around. It's fun to explore though, isn't it?

[akeakamai]

Hey, that's awesome. I didn't even think of a hierarchical structure Now I can know the order of the pair without ever looking it up or memorizing it, as long as I know who stands where. Thanks for thoroughly satisfying my curiosity heh