What currency pairs to trade in Forex???

Although there is lots of currency pairs offered to Forex traders, if you are a beginner it is easier to start with major currency pairs:

EUR/USD
GBP/USD
USD/JPY

There are several good reasons for that:

1. These currency crosses are widely traded, thus providing liquidity which is needed in order to benefit from price changes.
2. They have tight spreads, except may be for GBP/USD, which most of the time receives higher spread quotation from Forex brokers as it is more volatile (e.g. has wider price ranges than other pairs).
3. They all are traded against US dollar, which automatically suggest that the most active trading hours would be during New York trading session – the session with the highest volume of trades.
4. And finally, there are many Forex trading systems that are developed for trading those pairs and can be found online.

What currency pairs to avoid?

Exotic and uncommon currency pairs should be avoided by novice Forex traders as some further knowledge is needed to trade such pairs successfully.

Here is the list of major currencies beginner traders should focus on:

Euro (EUR)
US Dollar (USD)
British Pound (GBP)
Swiss Franc (CHF)
Japanese Yen (JPY)
Australian Dollar (AUD)
Canadian Dollar (CAD)

Also novice Forex traders should try to avoid currency pairs which have high spreads. Spreads vary from broker to broker. The information about spreads can be found at brokers’ websites, or at the special column called “Spread” on the trading platform itself, or from the Ask/Bid table (found also on the trading platform) by subtracting Bid price from the Ask.

Here is an example:

On the screenshot we have USD/CHF spread = 3 (Ask – Bid = 0.9992-0.9989 = 3)
GBP/USD spread = 3
EUR/USD spread = 2
USD/JPY spread = 2


Currencies that have high spreads are more volatile, e.g. have wide price ranges and longer price spikes, which unprepared traders may find difficult to trade.

Also a common mistake done by many beginner traders is that they try to monitor too many currency pairs at once. Not only it makes trading hectic and more difficult to manage, it also prevents deeper analysis of the currency pairs and actually learning their “behavior” over the time.
Currency pairs do have their unique ways to move, react to economical events, form trends etc.
By studying one currency pair at the time, Forex traders have the ability to observe its behavior and learn the ways to trade the pair even more effectively.

3 easiest pairs are: EUR/USD, USD/JPY and GBP/USD.

EUR/USD - most popular pair with the lowest spread. This pair is an ideal choice for beginners, since it responds quite well to basic technical studies and rules, which traders learn in the beginning. EUR/USD is not too volatile under normal market conditions and, thus, can be traded safely with lesser risks and closer stops.
From the fundamental point of view EUR/USD gets lots of global economic coverage, it is an easy to follow and monitor pair.

USD/JPY is another good currency pair. It often has the same low spread as EUR/USD, which makes it attractive to investors. USD/JPY pair features much smoother trends, comparing to other pairs; this makes trading USD/JPY during trends a real joy, not to mention the fact of earning profits alongside.

The behavior (trend) of USD/JPY pair can also easily be compared/verified with other /JPY pairs, for example, EUR/JPY, CAD/JPY or GBP/JPY.

GBP/USD - this currency pair likes large moves, it is able to bring more pips in one simple move than EUR/USD or USD/JPY. It is a pair often used for breakout trading. However, the risks here rise proportional to profit opportunities. GBP/USD requires further away placed stops. It belongs to volatile pairs group.
There is also plenty of market research and analysis available for GBP/USD, which makes it favorable among traders.

Every trading system would behave differently with different currency pairs. Stops, Profit levels, risks - everything should be calculated and tailored individually for each pair if you are looking to get the best performance out of each trade.