FOREX- Spread

In Forex trading the difference between the bid price and ask price is called the spread. The big-figure quote is a dealer expression referring to the first few digits of an exchange rate. These digits often are omitted in dealer quotes. For example, a USD/JPY rate might be 117.30/117.35 but would be quoted verbally without the first three digits as 30/35. The critical characteristic of the bid/ask spread is that it is also the transaction cost for a round-turn trade. Round turn means both a buy (or sell) trade and an offsetting sell (or buy) trade of the same size in the same currency pair. In the case of the EUR/USD rate above, the transaction cost is 3 pips.