{"id":895,"date":"2017-01-22T17:16:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-22T17:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/?p=895"},"modified":"2019-04-11T19:08:01","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T18:08:01","slug":"forex-trader-basics-understanding-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/forex-trader-basics-understanding-spread\/","title":{"rendered":"Forex Trader Basics: Understanding Spread"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Forex Trader Basics: Understanding Spread<\/p>\n<p>Spread is by far one of the most common costs associated with forex trading, and it is a vital concept to understand. \u00a0As a new forex trader, spread is something that will impact your trading a great deal and it is very important to know where it comes from and how it affects your trading.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-770 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/41-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"41\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/41-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/41-320x200.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/41.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>At any given time, the price you see on your forex chart or from your broker is really just one of two prices. \u00a0The easiest way to understand this is consider buying and selling a ring at a pawnshop. \u00a0If you were to &#8220;pawn&#8221; or sell your gold ring, the pawnbroker would offer you a lower price than he\/she will end up putting it on sale for later. \u00a0Pawnbrokers are in business to make a profit, and that is how they make a substantial portion of their profit. \u00a0In fact, virtually all buying and selling in the world done for profit operates in this manner.<\/p>\n<p>When you as the consumer are buying something it is typically at a rate higher than what the seller bought it for. \u00a0When you go to sell an item as a consumer back to the same retailer (unless it&#8217;s an unopened return in the case of retail stores and even then there are sometimes &#8220;restocking fees&#8221;), they will likely offer you less than what you paid for it.<\/p>\n<p>Brokers, in the forex market, operate in the same fashion. \u00a0They are a middle-man, connecting you as the trader, with an interested buyer or seller, and in this case it&#8217;s a commodity called currency. \u00a0When you &#8220;buy&#8221; or &#8220;go long&#8221; on a forex pair, you are buying one currency and selling another. \u00a0The broker facilitates this transaction for you, and therefore charges a fee. \u00a0This can come in the form of commission, but for this article, we are going to discuss the spread which can be used instead of a commission or in addition to one.<\/p>\n<p>Back to the forex chart, most brokers only display the &#8220;bid&#8221; line, or the price that they are willing to sell you the pair at. \u00a0But there is also an &#8220;ask&#8221; price above that bid line which is the price they are willing to buy the pair from you for. \u00a0If you open your order display in Metatrader you will see both prices and usually a graph with two lines moving almost in tandem. \u00a0The difference between the &#8220;bid&#8221; and &#8220;ask&#8221; price is known as the spread and it is a trading cost, because you are always going to be able to buy the pair for a higher price than you can sell it for at any particular place in time.<\/p>\n<p>This ensures any trade you start is always going to be slightly (or in the case of a high spread, much more) at a loss to start the trade. \u00a0If your trade goes in your favor, this spread &#8220;disappears&#8221; by the time you are in profit, but essentially what&#8217;s happening is you are paying the spread FIRST, then whatever gains you might make on the movement become profits. \u00a0Spread varies from broker to broker, and from market to market, and even from time to time on the same pair on the same broker. \u00a0But reducing spread is covered an another article.<\/p>\n<h2>New Forex Trader Basics: Understanding Spread<\/h2>\n<p>Understanding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/reducing-spread-in-forex-trading\/\">spread<\/a> is a basic concept in the trading world, but a very important one. \u00a0Knowing what spread it and how it affects you as a trader is vital as part of your education, and ability to make money as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/understanding-different-types-forex-trading\/\">forex<\/a> trader.<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to learn how to trade like a professional check out our 5* rated forex mentor program by clicking on the \u201cGet Started\u201d Button below<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\" https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/mw-post \" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/728x90-.jpg \" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spread is by far one of the most common costs associated with forex trading, and it is a vital concept to understand.  As a new forex trader, spread is something that will impact your trading a great deal and it is very important to know where it comes from and how it affects your trading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[65,92,75,67,90,68,69,70,71,89,93,91],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forex-articles","category-forex-education","tag-day-trading","tag-forex-broker-spread","tag-forex-coaching","tag-forex-education","tag-forex-spread","tag-forex-tips","tag-forex-trading","tag-omar-eltoukhy","tag-profitable-forex-trading","tag-spread","tag-support-and-resistance-trading-education","tag-understanding-spread"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forexmentorpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}