[Kiwi]

I had always believed that the majors were crosses with USD which equates to the available currency futures and the use of the USD as the standard currency up until the rise of the EUR recently. Below is Wikipedia's extract from the Triennial Central Bank Survey (December 2007), Bank for International Settlements.



So the majors become EURUSD, JPYUSD, GBPUSD, CHFUSD, AUDUSD and, given that the large players are now trading EUR directly against JPY, EURJPY.

Other USD crosses might technically be majors (with reduced spreads) but you can see by % traded why the spreads rise dramatically away from EURUSD.

All others, GBPJPY, included must be crosses.

[tlfx]

Wow nice one Kiwi!

[Kiwi]

Adding to it tlfx I did a "liquidity chart" by multiplying the percentages out to give "pair liquidity". The raw data is at the top. The information at the bottom shows how liquid the pair is compared with what I would consider the minimum tradable liquidity audusd.

I always laugh when people talk about trading nzdaud. Its a little like wanting to trade the lumber future - the trends look great but liquidity/slippage and in the case of lumber, lock limit costs are very very high. No offense if you insist on trading it of course

[sneo]

just to add to kiwi's post.

below chart show estimated market shares of each pairs, summing to the indicated market share. also the relative liquidity to eurusd (eurusd as 1.00).

[fxlabrat]

Sorry i'm about to ask a newbie question.

What's the best pair to start for a newbie?

Thanks.

[daedalus]

eurusd. most traded pair. that or gbpusd. most systems/methods you'll find trade one or the other.