Glossary · How do you trade forex?Bid price
The bid price is the price at which you can sell a currency pair right now. It is the lower of the two prices in every forex quote. You open a sell trade at the bid, and you close a buy trade at the bid.
The bid is what the market will pay for the base currency, which makes it your selling price. The bid and ask lesson covers both sides of a quote with real prices.
Where the bid sits in a quote
Every quote shows the bid and a higher ask price. The gap between them is the spread. On 29 October 2026 at 16:35 UTC, an Exness Standard account quoted EUR/USD at 1.11605 bid and 1.11613 ask.
The bid applies to every order that sells. That means opening a short position and closing a long one, as explained under long and short positions.
Why a new buy trade shows a loss
Your platform values an open buy at the bid, because that is the price you could close it at. Here is the quote above as a worked example with 1 standard lot:
- You buy at the ask, 1.11613.
- The bid is 1.11605, so the gap is 0.00008, or 0.8 pip.
- At $10 per pip, the trade shows -$8 the moment it opens.
The bid has to rise to 1.11613 before the trade breaks even. MetaTrader draws forex charts from bid prices, so the candles you see are the bid.
Questions
Is the bid price higher or lower than the ask?
Lower. You sell at the bid and buy at the ask, and the ask is always the higher of the two.
Why is it called the bid?
It is the price the market is bidding, or offering to pay, for the base currency. Because the market buys from you at that price, it is the price you sell at.
More terms in this chapter
PipA pip is the standard unit for measuring a change in a forex price. On most currency pairs it is 0.0001, the fourth decimal place, and on pairs quoted in Japanese yen it is 0.01. One tenth of a pip is called a pipette.
PipetteA pipette is one tenth of a pip, shown as the extra last digit of most forex quotes. On EUR/USD it is 0.00001, the fifth decimal, and on yen pairs such as USD/JPY it is 0.001. Traders also call it a fractional pip.
Pip valuePip value is the amount of money a one pip move adds to or takes from a position. It equals the pip size times the units traded, counted in the quote currency. On one standard lot of EUR/USD in a US dollar account it is $10.
LotA lot is the standard unit of trade size in forex. One standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, a mini lot is 10,000 and a micro lot is 1,000. MetaTrader shows these sizes as volumes of 1.00, 0.10 and 0.01.
Market orderA market order is an instruction to buy or sell straight away at the best price available. A buy fills at the ask and a sell at the bid. You get a fast fill but not a guaranteed price, so in a fast market the fill can slip.
Pending orderA pending order is an instruction to trade later, once price reaches a level you set. Limit orders wait for a better price than now; stop orders wait for price to break through a level. Until it triggers, no position is open.
Learn it in full
Related terms