Currency Pairs

Tailoring Your Technical Approach to Currency "Personalities"

by: Brian Dolan 

Every currency pair has qualities unique to it. Find out what those qualities are.

Much has been written about the suitability of technical analysis for trading in the currency markets. While this is undoubtedly true, it can leave traders, particularly those new to the currency markets, with the impression that all technical tools are equally applicable to all major currency pairs. Perhaps most dangerous from the standpoint of profitability, it can also seduce traders into searching for the proverbial silver bullet: that magic technical tool or study that works for all currency pairs, all the time. However, anyone who has traded Forex for any length of time will recognise that, for example, dollar/Yen (USD/JPY) and dollar/Swiss (USD/CHF) trade in distinctly different fashions.

Why, then, should a one-size-fits-all technical approach be expected to produce steady trading results? Instead, traders are more likely to experience improved results if they recognise the differences between the major currency pairs and employ different technical strategies to them. This article will explore some of the differences between the major currency pairs and suggest technical approaches that are best suited to each pair's behavioral tendencies. 

The Biggie

By far the most actively traded currency pair is euro/dollar (EUR/USD), accounting for 28 percent of daily global volume in the most recent Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey of currency market activity. EUR/USD receives further interest from volume generated by the Euro-crosses (e.g. euro/British pound (EUR/GBP), EUR/CHF and EUR/JPY, and this interest tends to be contrary to the underlying U.S. dollar direction. For example, in a U.S. dollar-negative environment, the Euro will have an underlying bid stemming from overall U.S. dollar selling. However, less liquid dollar pairs (e.g. USD/CHF) will be sold through the more liquid Euro crosses, in this case resulting in EUR/CHF selling, which introduces a Euro offer into the EUR/USD market.

This two-way interest tends to slow Euro movements relative to other major dollar pairs and makes it an attractive market for short-term traders, who can exploit "backing and filling." On the other hand, this depth of liquidity also means EUR/USD tends to experience prolonged, seemingly inconclusive tests of technical levels, whether generated by trendline analysis or Fibonacci/Elliott wave calculations. This suggests breakout traders need to allow for a greater margin of error: 20-30 pips. (A pip is the smallest increment in which a foreign currency can trade with respect to identifying breaks of technical levels.) Another way to gauge whether EUR/USD is breaking out is to look to the less liquid USD/CHF and GBP/USD. If these pairs have broken equivalent technical levels, for example recent daily highs, then EUR/USD is likely to do the same after a lag. If "Swissy" and "Cable" (popular name for British pound) are stalling at those levels, then EUR/USD will likely fail as well. 

Customise Your Settings

In terms of technical studies, the overwhelming depth of EUR/USD suggests that momentum oscillators are well-suited to trading the euro, but traders should consider adjusting the studies' parameters (increase time periods) to account for the relatively plodding, back-and-fill movements of EUR/USD. In this sense, reliance on very short-term indicators (less than 30 minutes) exposes traders to an increased likelihood of "whipsaw" movements. Moving average convergence divergence (MACD) as a momentum study is well-suited to EUR/USD, particularly because it utilises exponential moving averages (greater weight to more recent prices, less to old prices) in conjunction with a third moving average, resulting in fewer false crossovers. Short-term (hourly) momentum divergences routinely occur in EUR/USD, but they need to be confirmed by breaks of price levels identified though trendline analysis to suggest an actionable trade. When larger moves are underway, traders are also likely to find the directional movement indicator (DMI) system useful for confirming whether a trend is in place, in which case momentum readings should be discounted, and might choose to rely on DI+/DI- crossovers for additional trade entry signals. 

Second Place

The next most actively traded currency pair is USD/JPY, which accounted for 17 percent of daily global volume in the 2004 BIS survey of currency market turnover. USD/JPY has traditionally been the most politically sensitive currency pair, with successive U.S. governments using the exchange rate as a lever in trade negotiations with Japan. While China has recently replaced Japan as the Asian market evoking U.S. trade tensions, USD/JPY still acts as a regional currency proxy for China and other less-liquid, highly regulated Asian currencies. In this sense, USD/JPY is frequently prone to extended trending periods as trade or regional political themes (e.g. yuan revaluation) play out.

For day-to-day trading, however, the most significant feature of USD/JPY is the heavy influence exerted by Japanese institutional investors and asset managers. Due to a culture of intra-Japanese collegiality, including extensive position and strategy information-sharing, Japanese asset managers frequently act in the same direction on the yen in the currency market. In concrete terms, this frequently manifests itself in clusters of orders at similar price or technical levels, which then reinforce those levels as points of support or resistance. Once these levels are breached, similar clusters of stop loss orders are frequently just behind, which in turn fuel the breakout. Also, as the Japanese investment community moves en masse into a particular trade, they tend to drive the market away from themselves for periods of time, all the while adjusting their orders to the new price levels, for instance raising limit buy orders as the price rises.

An alternate tactic frequently employed by Japanese asset managers is to stagger orders to take advantage of any short-term reversals in the direction of the larger trend. For example, if USD/JPY is at 115.00 and trending higher, USD/JPY buying orders would be placed at arbitrary price points, such as 114.75, 114.50, 114.25 and 114.00, to take advantage of any pullback in the broader trend. This also helps explain why USD/JPY frequently encounters support or resistance at numerically round levels, even though there may be no other corresponding technical significance. 

Take A Look at Trendlines

Turning to the technical side of USD/JPY, the foregoing discussion suggests trendline analysis as perhaps the most significant technical tool for trading USD/JPY. Because of the clustering of Japanese institutional orders around technical or price levels, USD/JPY tends to experience fewer false breaks of trendlines. For example, large-scale selling interest at technical resistance will need to be absorbed if the technical level is to be broken. This is likely to happen only if a larger market move is unfolding, and this suggests any break will be sustained. This makes USD/JPY attractive for breakout traders who employ stop-loss entry orders on breaks of trendline support or resistance. Short-term trendlines, such as hourly or 15 minutes, can be used effectively, but traders need to operate on a similarly short-term basis; daily closing levels hold the most meaning in USD/JPY. In terms of chart analysis, Japanese institutional asset managers rely heavily on candlestick charts (which depend heavily on daily close levels) and traders would be well-advised to learn to recognise major candlestick patterns, such as doji, hanging man, tweezer tops/bottoms and the like. When it comes to significant trend reversals or pauses, daily close (10 p.m. GMT), candlesticks can be highly reliable leading indicators.

The yen discussion above also highlighted the factors behind the propensity of USD/JPY to trend over the medium-term (multiweek). This facet suggests traders should look to trend following tools such as moving averages (21- and 55-day periods are heavily used), DMI, and Parabolic SAR. (This refers to J. Welles Wilder Jr.'s Parabolic System. SAR stands for stop and reverse.) Momentum oscillators such as the relative strength index (RSI), MACD or stochastics should generally be avoided, especially intraday, due to the trending and institutional nature driving USD/JPY. While a momentum indicator may reverse course, typically suggesting a potential trade, price action often fails to reverse enough to make the trade worthwhile due to underlying institutional interest. Instead of reversing along with momentum, USD/JPY price action will frequently settle into a sideways range, allowing momentum studies to continue to unwind, until the underlying trend resumes. Finally, Ichimoku analysis (roughly translated as one-glance cloud chart) is another largely Japanese-specific trend identification system that highlights trends and major reversals. 

A Look At Some Illiquid Currencies

Having looked at the two most heavily traded currency pairs, let's now examine two of the least liquid major currency pairs, USD/CHF and GBP/USD, which pose special challenges to technically oriented traders. The so-called Swissy holds a place among the major currency pairs due to Switzerland's unique status as a global investment haven; estimates are that nearly one-third of the world's private assets are held in Switzerland. The Swiss franc has also acted historically as a so-called "safe-haven" currency alternative to the U.S. dollar in times of geo-political uncertainty, but this dimension has largely faded since the end of the Cold War. Today, USD/CHF trades mostly based on overall U.S. dollar sentiment, as opposed to Swiss-based economic fundamentals. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is primarily concerned with the franc's value relative to the euro, since the vast majority of Swiss trade is with the European Union, and Swiss fundamental developments are primarily reflected in the EUR/CHF cross rate.

Liquidity in USD/CHF is never very good, and this makes it a favorite "whipping horse" for hedge funds and other speculative interests looking to maximise the bang for their buck. The lower liquidity and higher volatility of Swissy also makes it a significant leading indicator for major U.S. dollar movements. Swissy will also lead the way in shorter-term movements, but the overall volatility and general jitteriness of USD/CHF price action makes false breaks of technical levels common. These false breaks are frequently stop-loss driven and it is not unusual for prices to trade 15-25 points through a support/resistance level before reversing after the stop losses have been triggered. In strong directional moves, USD/CHF price action tends toward extreme one-way traffic, with minimal backing and filling in comparison to EUR/USD.

Cable (GBP/USD), or sterling, also suffers from relatively poor liquidity and this is in part due to its higher pip value (U.S. dollars) and the relatively Euro-centric basis of U.K. trade. Sterling shares many of the same trading characteristics of Swissy outlined just above, but Cable will also react sharply to U.K. fundamental data as well as to U.S. news. Sterling's price action will also display extreme one-way tendencies during larger moves, as traders caught on the wrong side chase the illiquid market to the extremes. 

Focus On Risk Management

The volatility and illiquidity of Swissy and sterling suggests traders need to use a more proactive overall approach to trading these pairs, particularly concerning risk management (i.e. position size in relation to stop levels). With regard to technical tools, the tendency for both pairs to make short-term false breaks of chart levels suggests breakout traders need to be particularly disciplined concerning stop entry levels and should consider a greater margin of error on the order of 30-35 points. In this sense, trendline analysis of periods less than an hour tends to generate more noise than tradable break points, so a focus on longer time periods (four hours-daily) is likely to be more successful in identifying meaningful breaks. By the same token, once a breakout occurs, surpassing the margin of error, the ensuing one-way price action favors traders who are quick on the trigger, and this suggests employing resting stop-loss entry orders to reduce slippage. For those positioned with a move, trailing stops with an acceleration factor, such as parabolic SAR, are well suited to riding out directional volatility until a price reversal signals an exit. Of course, placing contigent orders may not necessarily limit your losses.

The volatility inherent in Cable and Swissy makes the use of short-term (hourly and shorter) momentum oscillators problematic, due to both false crossovers and divergences between price/momentum that frequently occur in these time frames. Longer-period oscillators (four hours and more) are best used to highlight potential reversals or divergent price action, but volatility discourages initiating trades based on these alone. Instead, momentum signals need to be confirmed by other indicators, such as breaks of trendlines, Fibonacci retracements or parabolic levels, before a trade is initiated. 

Try A Larger Retracement

With regard to Fibonacci retracement levels, the greater volatility of Cable and Swissy frequently sees them exceed 61.8-percent retracements, only to stall later at the 76.4-percent level, by which time most short-term Elliott wave followers have been stopped out. Short-term spike reversals of greater than 30 points also serve as a reliable way to identify when a directional surge, especially intraday, is completed, and these can be used as both profit taking and counter-trend trading signals. For counter-trend, corrective trades based on spike reversals, stops should be placed slightly beyond the extreme of the spike low/high. A final technical study that is well suited to the explosiveness of Swissy and sterling is the Williams %R, an overbought/oversold momentum indicator, which frequently acts as a leading indicator of price reversals. The overbought/oversold bands should be adjusted to -10/-90 to fit the higher volatility of Cable and Swissy. As with all overbought/oversold studies, however, price action needs to reverse course first before trades are initiated. 

It's Not One Size Fits All

Traders who seek to apply technical trading approaches to the currency market should be aware of the differences in the trading characteristics of the major currency pairs. Just because the euro and the pound are both traded against the dollar does not mean they will trade identically to each other. A more thorough understanding of the various market traits of currencies suggests that certain technical tools are better suited to some currency pairs than others. A currency-specific approach to applying technical analysis is more likely to produce successful results than a one-size-fits-all application across all currency pairs.

Calculating Cross Rates

Warning: This part is a little boring...unless you like numbers. It's not difficult but it can be kind of dry. The good news is that this section really isn't necessary anymore since most broker platforms already calculate cross rates for you.
However, if you are the type that likes to know how everything works, then this section is for you! And besides, it's always good to know how things work right? In this section, we will show you how to calculate the bid (buying price) and ask (selling price) of a currency cross.
Let's say we want to find the bid/ask price for GBP/JPY. The first thing we would do is look at the bid/ask price for both GBP/USD and USD/JPY.
Why these 2 pairs?
Because both of them have the U.S. dollar as their common denominator.
These 2 pairs are called the "legs" of GBP/JPY because they are the U.S. dollar pairs associated with it.
Now let's say we find the following bid/ask prices:
GBP/USD: 1.5630 (bid) / 1.5635 (ask)
USD/JPY: 89.38 (bid) / 89.43 (ask)
To calculate the bid price for GBP/JPY, you simply multiply the bid prices for GBP/USD and USD/JPY.
If you got 139.70, good job! Your calculator is working properly, yipee!
To get the ask price for GBP/JPY, just multiply the ask prices for GBP/USD and USD/JPY and we get 139.82. Easy as pie!

Crosses Present More Trading Opportunities

Over 90% of the transactions in the forex market involve the U.S. dollar. This is because the U.S. dollar is the reserve currency in the world. You may be asking yourself, "Why the U.S. dollar and not the sterling, or euro?"
Most agricultural and industrial commodities such as oil are priced in U.S. dollars. If a country needs to purchase oil or other agricultural goods, it would first have to change its currency into U.S. dollars before being able to buy the goods. This is why many countries keep a reserve of U.S. dollars on hand. They can make purchases much faster with Greenbacks already in their pocket.
Countries such as China, Japan, and Australia are examples of heavy importers of oil, and as a result, they keep huge reserves of U.S. dollars in their central banks. In fact, China has almost a trillion U.S. dollars in its reserve stockpile!
So what does this all have to do with trading currency crosses? Well since most of the world is glued to the U.S. dollar, a majority of trading speculation will be based on one question:

"Is the U.S. dollar weak or strong today?"

This one question will affect many of the most liquid currency pairs:
The majors: GBP/USD, EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY
The commodity pairs: AUD/USD, USD/CAD, NZD/USD
Notice that all of these pairs are tied to the U.S. dollar. This doesn't give a trader many options when most of their trading decisions are based on this one speculation.

You can see that by trading any of the 7 most popular currencies, you are basically taking either an anti-U.S. dollar or pro-U.S. dollar stance. This one speculation affects these pairs in almost the same way across the board.
Conversely in the stock market, traders have multiple companies to choose from and are not bound to one major speculation idea.

With stocks, you can see that even though the overall market was positive, there are still plenty of other trading opportunities. There isn't just one kind of speculation that affects the entire basket of stocks.
Instead of just looking at the seven "major" dollar-based pairs, currency crosses provide more currency pairs for you to find profitable opportunities!
By trading currency crosses, you give yourself more options for trading opportunities because these currencies are not bound to the U.S. dollar, thus possibly having different price movement behaviors. So while the majority of the markets will only trade on anti-U.S. dollar or pro-U.S. dollar sentiments, you can find new opportunities in currency crosses.
Just check out Cyclopip's Currency Cross-Eyed blog and you'd realize that crosses present a huge potential for catching plenty of pips!
For example, all the dollar-based pairs might be trading sideways or in some uglier fashion where it would be smart to just sit on the sidelines and wait for better trade setups, but if you knew to switch your charts to look at currency crosses, you might just find trading opportunities galore!
Be different! The majority of traders just trade the majors. Now you can be part of the minority that trades the crosses.

Cleaner Trends and Ranges

Since a majority of the forex market will deal with the U.S. dollar, you can imagine that many of the news reports will cause U.S. dollar-based currency pairs to spike. The US has the largest economy in the world, and as a result, speculators react strongly to U.S. news reports, even if it doesn't cause a huge fundamental shift in the long run.
What this means for your charts is that you will see several "spikes" even if there is a trend emerging. This can make it harder to spot trend or range indications.

The day to day economic activities of the U.S. can keep U.S. dollar based currencies such as EUR/USD (above) from making smooth trends.

Conversely, we can see that during the same date range EUR/JPY made a much, much smoother ride to the top. This was probably due to less spikes that came from U.S. data. So as you can see, both charts showed the euro rise during the same time period, but the one without the U.S. dollar (EUR/JPY) made for a much easier trade.
Our resident currency cross monster Cyclopip caught a hundred pips by riding EUR/JPY's trend. Check out how caught that move!
If you are a trend following kinda dude, then currency crosses may be easier to trade than the major pairs. It will be easier for you to spot the trend and be more confident in your entry points because you know that the these technical levels hold more than they do for the majors.
In the next section, we'll discuss how playing with crosses can also allow you to take advantage of the interest rate differentials. Now that's like a cherry on top of a sundae!

Taking Advantage of Interest Rate Differential

By selling currencies whose country has a lower interest rate against currencies whose country has a higher interest rate, you can profit from the interest rate differential (known as a carry trade) as well as price appreciation.
That's like being able to get a frosted cupcake with sprinkles on top! That talks to you! Imagine how delicious that would taste!

Currency crosses offer many pairs with high interest rate differentials that are prime for these types of trades.

For example, take a look at the nice uptrend on AUD/JPY. If you had a long position on this pair, you would've made a hefty profit.
On top of that, the interest rate differential between AUD and JPY was huge. From 2002 to 2007, the Reserve Bank of Australia had raised rates to 6.25% while the BOJ kept their rates at 0%.
That means you made profits off your long position AND the interest rate differential on that trade! 

Later on in college (if your brain hasn't exploded with all this forex knowledge by then), we'll teach you more about carry trade. We'll teach you which ones will work and which ones won't. We'll even teach you about a lil' something called risk aversion. But that's for a later lesson.

Obscure Crosses

While the euro and yen crosses are the most liquid crosses, more crosses exist don't even include the U.S. dollar, euro, or the yen! We'll call these the "Obscure Crosses"!
If we were in school - come to think of it, we actually are in school! - the major pairs would be the jocks while the obscure crosses would be the eccentric emo kids.

That's because most traders would rather hang out with the cool crowd than the obscure crosses!
We're talking about really weird combinations like AUD/CHF, AUD/NZD, CAD/CHF, and GBP/CHF. That's why we call them obscure crosses (duh!).
Trading in these pairs can be more difficult and riskier than trading euro or yen crosses. Since very few traders trade them, transaction volume is much lower resulting in lower liquidity.
Due to the illiquid markets for these crosses, their prices can become quite volatile, so being stopped out on whipsaws can become a common occurrence.
Check out these screenshots of AUD/CHF and GBP/CHF:

You don't want to get stopped out by those nasty spikes, do you? That's why most traders usually put wider stops when trading these pairs.
But judging from the choppy movement of obscure crosses, it would really be tough to catch a good trade on these pairs. Unless you're a currency cross guru like Cyclopip, of course!

See what we mean?
Also, since these pairs aren't traded too much, the spreads on these pairs can be pretty big.
If you want to trade these crosses, just be ready for some wild price swings and be willing to pay the price of the massive spread!

Planning Around News and Fundamentals

If strong economic data comes out of Australia, you might want to look at buying the AUD. Your first reaction might be to buy AUD/USD.
But what if at the same time, recent data also show the United States experiencing strong economic growth? Price action of AUD/USD may be flat.
One option that you have is to match the AUD against the currency of an economy that isn't doing so well.... Hmmmm... what could you do?
Ah! Thank the forex gods for currency crosses!
Let's say you did some analysis, checked the BabyPips.com economic calendar (shameless plug!) or Pip Diddy's daily economic roundup (another shameless plug!) and you notice that the Japanese economy isn't doing so good right now.
What do you do?
Of course, like any self-respecting bully, you jump all over this opportunity and go long AUD/JPY!

There's nothing wrong with being a bully, at least not here at the School of Pipsology.

It's your job as a trader to take advantage of certain opportunities so that you can put some silver dollars into your piggy bank.
Because of currency crosses, you now have the opportunity to match the currency of the best performing economy against that of the weakest economy without having to deal with the U.S. dollar.

 

Creating Synthetic Pairs

Sometimes institutional traders can't trade certain currency crosses because they trade in such high volume that there isn't enough liquidity to execute their order.
In order to execute their desired trade, they have to create a "synthetic pair".
Let's say that an institutional trader wants to buy GBP/JPY but can't because there isn't enough liquidity. To execute this trade, they would have to buy GBP/USD and sell USD/JPY (earlier in this lesson, we learned that these pairs are called its legs).
They are able to do this because there is plenty of liquidity in GBP/USD and USD/JPY which means they can make large orders.

If you're a retail trader, and you wanted to pretend to trade like an institutional trader, then you could technically trade synthetic pairs as well. But it wouldn't be too smart.
Ever since the great Al Gore "invented the internet," technology has improved to the point now that even weird crosses like GBP/NZD or CHF/JPY can now be traded on your broker's platform. Aside from having access to a larger "menu" of currency pairs to trade, the spreads would be tighter on the crosses compared to the synthetic pair you'd create.

And let's not forgot about margin use! Creating a synthetic pair requires you to open two separate positions and each position requires its own margin. This locks up unnecessary capital in your trading account when you can simply trade the cross-currency and save on margin.
So unless you're trading yards (slang term for one BILLION units), forget synthetic pairs and stick to crosses. You will be savings yourself some pips (thanks to a tighter spread) as well as freeing up your capital so you can take on more trades.

Euro and Yen Crosses

After the U.S. dollar, the euro and yen are the most traded currencies. And like the U.S. dollar, the euro and yen are also held as reserve currencies by different countries. So this makes the euro and yen crosses the most liquid outside of the U.S. dollar-based "majors".

Trading the Euro Crosses

The most popular EUR crosses are EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP, and EUR/CHF.
News that affects the euro or Swiss franc will be felt more in EUR crosses than EUR/USD or USD/CHF.
U.K. news will greatly affect EUR/GBP.
Oddly enough, U.S. news plays a part in the movement of the EUR crosses. U.S. news makes strong moves in GBP/USD and USD/CHF. This not only affects the price of the GBP and CHF against the USD, but it could also affect the GBP and CHF against the EUR.
A big move higher in the USD will tend to see a higher EUR/CHF and EUR/GBP and the same goes for the opposite direction.
Confused? Ok ok...let's break this down.
Let's say that the US shows positive economic data causing the USD to rise. This means that GBP/USD would fall, driving the price of the GBP down. At the same time USD/CHF would rise, also driving the price of the CHF down.
The drop in GBP price would then cause EUR/GBP to rise (since traders are selling off their GBP).
The drop in CHF price would also cause EUR/CHF to rise (since traders are selling of their CHF).
Conversely, this would also work in the opposite direction if the U.S. showed negative economic data.

Trading the Yen Crosses

The JPY is one of the more popular cross currencies and it is basically traded against all of the other major currencies.
EUR/JPY has the highest volume of the JPY crosses as of February 2010.
GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY, and NZD/JPY are attractive carry trade currencies because they offer the highest interest rate differentials against the JPY.
When trading JPY cross pairs, you should always keep an eye out on the USD/JPY. When key levels are broken or resisted on this pair, it tends to spill over into the JPY cross pairs.

For example, if USD/JPY breaks out above a key resistance area, it means that traders are selling off their JPY. This could prompt the selling of the JPY against other currencies. Therefore you could expect to see EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, and other JPY crosses to rise as well.

The CAD/JPY

Over recent years, this currency cross has become very popular, becoming highly correlated with the price of oil.
Canada is second largest owner of oil reserves and has benefited with the rise of oil prices.
On the other hand, Japan is heavily reliant on the importing of oil. In fact, over 99% of Japan's crude is imported as it has almost no native oil reserves.

These two factors have caused an 87% positive correlation between the price of oil and CAD/JPY.

 

How to Use Crosses to Trade the Majors

Even if you don't ever want to trade the crosses and simply stick to trading the majors, you can use crosses to help you make better trading decisions.
Here's an example...
Currency crosses can provide clues about the relative strength of each major currency pair.
Let's say you see a buy signal for EUR/USD and GBP/USD but you can only take one trade.
Which one do you take?
Simply looking at your crystal ball and guessing isn't likely to result in the right answer.
To find the right answer, you would look at EUR/GBP cross. If EUR/GBP is trending downward, this indicates that the pound is relatively stronger than the euro at the moment.
So the right answer would be to buy GBP/USD instead of EUR/USD due to the pound's relative strength against the euro.
Since the euro is weaker, relative to the pound, if it proves to strengthen against the U.S. dollar, it is likely to strengthen LESS than the pound.
If the U.S. dollar weakens across the board, GBP/USD you would make more pips since it would rally higher than EUR/USD.
So GBP/USD is the better trade.

You can do this relative strength analysis on any of the major pairs...

Let's say you're bearish on the U.S. dollar. How will you trade?

• Can't decide whether to buy EUR/USD or sell USD/CHF? Look at EUR/CHF.
• Can't decide whether to buy USD/CHF or USD/JPY? Look at CHF/JPY.
• Can't decide whether to buy EUR/USD or sell USD/JPY? Look at EUR/JPY.
• Can't decide whether to buy GBP/USD or sell USD/CHF? Look at GBP/CHF.
• Can't decide whether to buy GBP/USD or sell USD/JPY? Look at GBP/JPY.

So always remember, looking at cross pairs could give you an idea of the relative strength of a particular currency.

How Cross Currency Pairs Affect Dollar Pairs

Let's pretend the Fed announces they will raise interest rates. The market quickly starts buying the U.S. dollar across all major currencies....EUR/USD and GBP/USD fall while USD/CHF and USD/JPY rise.
You were short EUR/USD and were pleased to see price move in your favor making you some pips, but right before you were about to break out the cigar, you notice your friend who was long USD/JPY made a lot more pips than you.

You're like "What's up with that yo?"
You compare the charts of EUR/USD and USD/JPY and see that USD/JPY made the bigger move. It broke through a major technical resistance level and shot up 200 pips while EUR/USD barely shot down 100 pips and failed to break a major support level.
You're thinking to yourself, "If the U.S. dollar was being bought across the board, then how come my EUR/USD trade looks so weak compared to my friend's USD/JPY trade?"
This is due to the currency crosses! In this particular example, EUR/JPY.

When USD/JPY broke through its major resistance level, the combination of stop losses being hit and breakout traders jumping on the bandwagon pushed it even higher.
Since buying more USD/JPY weakens the yen, this would cause EUR/JPY (and possibly other yen-based pairs) to break through its major resistance level, once again hitting stops and attracting breakout traders, pushing EUR/JPY even higher.

This causes the euro to strengthen and slows down the descent of your EUR/USD trade. The EUR/JPY cross buying acts a "parachute" and this is why EUR/USD didn't move as much or as fast as the USD/JPY.
So even if you only trade the major currencies, currency crosses still have an effect on your trades!