Spread is essentially the difference between the bid and the ask price. As traders always trade one currency for another, forex currencies are always quoted in terms of what the price is currently compared to another.

To make things easy they are written in pairs. E.g. AUD/USD (Australian Dollar/US Dollar – AUD is the 'base currency' and USD is called the ‘counter’. If it took $1.5 AUD to buy $1 USD this would be written as 1.5/1.

If you choose to open and trade on a VT Markets RAW ECN account, you will find some of the lowest spreads in the industry. Trade on institutional grade liquidity, sourced directly from some of the world's biggest banks with absolutely no mark-up applied at our end.

This sort of liquidity and access to tight spread as low as zero, is no longer just the domain of hedge funds.