EURUSD definition

EUR/USD is the exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar, showing how many US dollars one euro will buy. It is the most heavily traded currency pair in the world, at about 21% of the roughly $9.6 trillion that changes hands in the global forex market each day (BIS Triennial Survey, 2025), which gives it the deepest liquidity and tightest spreads of any pair. Traders nickname it "fiber".

The euro is the base currency and the US dollar the quote currency, so a quote of 1.0850 means one euro is worth 1.0850 US dollars. A rising price means the euro is strengthening against the dollar, a falling price the reverse. You trade EUR/USD as a forex CFD, taking a position on the price rather than buying euros outright: go long if you expect the euro to rise, short if you expect it to fall. Moves are counted in pips, the fourth decimal place, and your result is the pips gained or lost multiplied by your position size.

What moves EUR/USD most is the interest-rate gap between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve, alongside eurozone and US growth and inflation data: a more hawkish Fed tends to lift the dollar and push the pair lower. As the benchmark major it reacts quickly to US releases and to shifts in global risk sentiment.