How to Read a Forex Currency Quote

Base Currency and Counter Currency

In the examples above, the U.S. dollar is the base currency. The base currency always comes first, and the counter currency is always expressed in terms of how many units equal one unit of the base currency. In the example above, the U.S. dollar is the base currency, and it always is except when being compared to the “Queen’s currencies” (the Great Britain pound, the Australian dollar, and the New Zealand dollar), and the Euro.