How to speak the market’s visual language
Learn how to read Forex quotes, price charts, and indicators — the tools traders use to see what’s happening in the market.
The Screen That Never Sleeps
Anika is diving deeper into the world of currencies. Her morning coffee is brewing, and so is her curiosity.
She logs into her demo trading app and sees rows of flashing numbers, green and red candles, and cryptic abbreviations.
“This looks like a cybersecurity dashboard,” she laughs. “Only instead of threats, it’s currencies fighting for dominance.”
Every tick, every color, every candle tells a story. Today, Anika begins to learn the language of the Forex screen.
Understanding a Forex Quote
Each currency pair is quoted with two prices: the bid and the ask.
For example, take: EUR/USD = 1.1050 / 1.1052
The difference between the bid and the ask is called the spread (0.0002). That’s the broker’s small cut.
A percentage in point (PIP) is the smallest price movement a currency pair can make, 0.0001 for most major pairs.
Anika thinks: “Tiny changes, big impact. One decimal in the wrong place can make a big difference.”
The Pairs She Follows
Anika bookmarks a few currency pairs on her app to watch daily, each offering a different perspective on the market:
By tracking them, she starts to spot how currencies move together and, sometimes, in opposite directions.
Candlestick Chart Comes Alive
She switches to the candlestick chart view with red and green bars showing the price action.
Each candle shows four key prices:
Candlesticks offer a visual read on market behavior: fast, slow, calm, or erratic.
Anika discovers: “These aren’t random shapes. They’re market sentiment visualized: fear, greed, confidence, doubt.”
Timeframes Help with the Big Picture
Her app lets her switch between timeframes:
What looks like a downtrend on a 5-minute chart might be an uptrend on a 1-day chart.
Anika notes: “Perspective changes everything. Zoom in for detail, zoom out for context.”