Currency Pairs

Currency pairs (forex) is one of the most popular underlying assets for binary options trading. You will find a wide selection of currency pairs available for trading at your binary broker.

Many of brokers also offer trading the South African Rand. Usually the currency pairs involving the rand is USD/ZAR and EUR/ZAR.

The most common currency pairs are:

• EUR/USD
• USD/JPY
• USD/CHF
• GBP/USD

These are part of what is called Major Currency pairs, or simply ”Majors”.

Major Currency Pairs

There are basically as many currencies as there are countries. And to add to that, currencies also come and go. Currency pairs are divided into categories based on the trading volume of the pair. Those that are categorized as major currency pairs, ”majors”, are those that have the highest trading volume. For instance EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, NZD/USD and AUD/USD are all major currency pairs.

Minor Currency Pairs

Minor currency pairs, ”Minors”, are currency pairs that does not involve the U.S. Dollar (USD). Examples of minor currency pairs are EUR/GBP, EUR/CHF, EUR/AUD, GBP/CHF, CAD/JPY, AUD/JPY and GBP/JPY. Minor currency pairs are sometimes also referred to as ”Crosses”.

Exotic Currency Pairs

Exotic currency pairs are those that include the currency from emerging markets and strong but smaller economies like for instance Sweden (SEK) and Norway (NOK). Examples of currencies from emerging markets are several african and asian currencies including MYR (Malaysian Ringgit), SLL (Sierra Leone), TZS (Tanzanian Schilling), BWP (Botswana Pula) and EGP (Egyptian Pound). Also the South African Rand is included in the exotic currency pairs, most common currency pair being USD/ZAR.

Currency pairs - Development of USD/ZAR from 2006 to 2016. Chart from xe.com