EUR/USD: live price, payout and trading hours

EUR/USD prices the euro, the shared currency of the euro area managed by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, against the US dollar, issued under the Federal Reserve. It is the most traded currency pair in the world and the textbook major pair: two huge economies, deep liquidity and a quote that reacts to important news from both sides of the Atlantic.

The number tells you how many dollars one euro buys. For example, a quote of 1.08500 means 1 EUR = 1.085 USD. When the pair rises, the euro is gaining on the dollar — or the dollar is losing ground, and the chart alone cannot tell you which. One pip is 0.0001; the fifth decimal in the terminal is a tenth of a pip, so a move from 1.08500 to 1.08512 is 1.2 pips.

Activity usually builds at the London open and is highest while London and New York are both trading; the Asian hours are typically calmer for this pair. The scheduled events that move it most are ECB and Fed rate decisions (and the press conferences after them), US non-farm payrolls, inflation data from the US and the euro area, and business surveys such as PMIs. Around these releases the price can jump several pips in seconds, which matters a lot on short expiries — check the economic calendar before you trade around them.

Sky Trade also lists EUR/USD OTC. That is a separate price series produced by Sky Trade's server around the clock; it does not follow the real euro-dollar rate, so ECB or Fed news has no effect on it.