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Base currency

The first currency in a pair; the one you are buying or selling, priced in units of the quote currency.

In EUR/USD, the euro is the base and the dollar is the quote-currency. A price of 1.0850 means one euro costs 1.0850 dollars. Buying the pair means buying euros with dollars; selling it means the reverse.

Lot sizes are counted in the base currency: a standard-lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 euros.

Example: buying 1 standard lot of EUR/USD at 1.0850 means you now hold 100,000 euros and owe 108,500 dollars.

Related: quote-currency, major-pairs, standard-lot, pip

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