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Educational content, not investment advice.

Souq Dailyسوق ديليSouq Daily

Lesson 2 of 104:105 Sources

Reading the price: Bid, Ask and Spread

Recorded. Publishing soon

Presented by NourIn Arabic, with captions. Other languages are coming.

Educational content, not investment advice. Nour explains how markets work. She never tells you what to buy or sell.

Every pair has two prices at the same moment.

  • Bid is the price you can sell at; Ask is the price you can buy at. The difference is the spread.
  • Example: 1.1000 / 1.1002 — a buy opens at Ask and closes at Bid, so it starts 2 pips behind.
  • Spreads are usually tighter on the most-traded pairs and can widen on exotics, in thin hours and around major news.
  • Costs can include spread, commission and financing — compare the full cost.
  • A sell stop-loss is triggered by the Ask, even if a Bid chart never touched it.

Quick check

Three questions. Pick an answer to see why.

0/3

  1. 1.EUR/USD shows Bid 1.1000 / Ask 1.1002. At which price does a buy order open?

  2. 2.In that quote, what is the spread?

  3. 3.Your target is 10 pips and the spread is 2 pips. What share of the target does the spread take?

Sources

Every fact in this lesson is backed by the sources below.

  1. 1.NFA — Trading in the Retail Off-Exchange Foreign Currency Market: What Investors Need to KnowDefinitions of bid, ask and bid/ask spread; spread quote example
  2. 2.CFTC GlossaryBid-ask spread = difference between bid and ask/offer price
  3. 3.MetaQuotes — MetaTrader 5 Help: Types of OrdersBuys execute at Ask, sells at Bid; long SL/TP checked against Bid, short against Ask
  4. 4.BIS Working Paper 1094 — The Foreign Exchange Market (Chaboud, Rime, Sushko, 2023)Trading is relatively thin in the late New York afternoon / early Asian morning
  5. 5.ASIC Moneysmart — Forex tradingForex trading may involve spreads, commissions and financing costs

Educational content, not investment advice. Risk warning: trading forex, CFDs, gold and crypto carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for everyone. You can lose more than you put in. Souq Daily is an education platform. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation or an offer, and past performance does not predict future results.