Although some retail dealers trade exotic currencies such as the Thai baht or the Czech koruna, the majority of dealers trade the seven most liquid currency pairs in the world, which are the four “majors”:
- EUR/USD (euro/dollar)
- USD/JPY (dollar/Japanese yen)
- GBP/USD (British pound/dollar)
- USD/CHF (dollar/Swiss franc).
The three commodity pairs are also traded:
- AUD/USD (Australian dollar/dollar)
- USD/CAD (dollar/Canadian dollar)
- NZD/USD (New Zealand dollar/dollar)
These seven major currency pairs account for about 80% of all speculative trading in FX. Given the small number of trading instruments—over 50 pairs and crosses are actively traded—the FX market is far more concentrated than the stock market