Quote is the price of a commodity that the seller or buyer declares and at which they are ready to make a purchase or a sale. Such commodities may include metals, raw materials, stocks, and other assets traded on the market. Currencies are the Forex commodity. Accordingly, a Forex quote is the price of one currency (the base), expressed in units of another currency (the quoted).
Let's take, for example, the USD/CAD quote. In this quote, the base currency—USD—is written first, and the quoted currency—CAD—is written second. Any quote consists of two parts: Bid—the price at which the customer can sell the base currency; ask (or offer)—the price at which the customer can buy the base currency for the quoted one. The difference between the sale price and the purchase price is called spread. The size of the spread depends on the currency pair in question, the amount of the transaction, and the state of the market.
There are direct and indirect quotes.
Direct quote is the price of the national currency for one unit of foreign currency.
Indirect quote is the price of a foreign currency for one unit of the national currency.
Today, the US dollar, denoted as USD, is the world's reserve currency. Therefore, the dollar acts as the base currency in quotes with most national currencies (USD/CAD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF). However, in the pound sterling (GBP/USD) quote, the pound is the base currency, and the dollar is the quoted currency. Currencies of former English colonies are quoted in the same way: the Australian dollar (AUD/USD) and the New Zealand dollar (NZD/USD). The Euro is also quoted as the base currency against the US dollar (EUR/USD).
This fact is very important for traders, as in some trading systems, quotes are shortened to the quoted currency. For example, instead of USD/JPY, people simply write JPY, and GBP/USD is denoted as GBP.
We provide Forex quotes online on our website. This allows you to always see the latest changes in the exchange rates of currencies traded on the Forex market and understand what is happening on the international currency market. In addition, you can see quotes of other financial assets (metals, stocks, and stock futures) on our website online.