One row in a list

Forex, as your phone shows it: a name and two numbers (Philippines)

Q: Where do the unfamiliar words on that screen get explained?

On the words page , keyed to the labels the app actually uses.

The market does not arrive as a market. It arrives as a scrolling list, and every line on it is a pair of currencies with a price for buying and a price for selling. Read one line properly and the rest of the list stops being intimidating.

Forex is the exchange of one currency for another, and a quote line states its rate. EUR/USD at 1.1000 says one euro is worth 1.1000 dollars — the first name is what is being priced, the second is what it is priced in. Your phone shows two of those numbers, not one, because there is a price at which you can buy and a lower one at which you can sell. That gap is the spread, and it is the cost of opening. Everything else on the screen is decoration around those three facts.

Reading a single line, part by part

Take one row in the quotes list and name each piece before scrolling on.

What you see	What it states	What it does not state
EUR/USD	Which currency is priced, and in what	Anything about which way it will go
Two prices	Where you can sell, where you can buy	The price your order will actually fill at
The gap between them	What opening costs before anything moves	What holding overnight costs
The fourth decimal moving	One pip — the unit price moves in	What one pip is worth to you: that is size
A colour or arrow	Direction since some earlier moment	Which moment, unless you check the chart

Why the list is still moving when you pick the phone up

Currency trading runs around the clock on weekdays, because it is not one exchange in one building — it is banks and brokers in every time zone handing the flow to each other. Nothing pauses because your screen locked. That has three consequences worth holding on to on a device you carry everywhere.

First, a position you opened at lunchtime lives through the night whether you look at it or not, which is why the checks before the screen locks exist at all. Second, the quiet hours in your own day may be the busy hours somewhere else, and a price can travel a long way while you sleep. Third, the clock in the app corner and the clock on your phone need not agree — the platform runs on its own time, and when you report anything, it is the platform's hour that means something.

From a number on the screen to an amount in the account

A price moving from 1.1000 to 1.1010 is ten pips. What those ten pips are worth is decided entirely by the size you chose, not by the market: on a dollar-quoted pair one pip on a full lot is $10, and on the smallest cent units the same pip is worth about ten cents. Same movement, same screen, a hundredfold difference in the amount — which is the single most useful thing to understand before the order screen is ever opened.

That is also why the arrow beside a name tells you nothing about your own risk. Two people watching the same green line can be gaining differently and losing differently. Run the size through the calculator before the market is even relevant.

What a quotes list cannot tell you, however long you stare at it

Where the price is going. The list reports; it does not forecast, and neither does anyone else's screenshot of it.
Whether now is a sensible moment. A market that never closes has no natural "good time to look" — that has to come from your plan.
What your order will fill at. The order screen prices your order; the list prices the moment.
How much you can afford to lose. Many people lose money when they start trading. That figure is decided away from the phone, before it is unlocked.

Questions asked while scrolling the list

Why does every name show two prices instead of one?

Because buying and selling happen at different prices. The gap is the spread, and it is what an opening costs before the market has moved at all.

What is a pip on a phone screen?

Usually the fourth decimal — 1.1000 to 1.1001. It is the unit of movement; what it is worth depends on your trade size.

The list moved while the app was closed. Did I miss something?

Only the watching. Currency trading runs around the clock on weekdays; a closed app changes nothing except your view.

Which pair should a beginner open first?

On a demo, the one you can read without hunting. No name on the list is safer than another — the size you choose does that work.

Why does the app's clock differ from my phone's?

The platform keeps its own time. When something needs reporting, quote the platform's hour, not the one on your lock screen.

Does the arrow beside a price mean it will keep going?

No. It reports a change since some earlier point, and past movement is not a statement about the next one.

Are prices on the phone the same as in the browser?

They are the same relay. A small difference is one screen having refreshed a moment later than the other.

Can the list be watched without an account?

A demo account shows the same list on virtual money, with no documents and no time limit — that is the usual way to watch it.

Does forex close at weekends?

The round-the-clock part is the weekdays. A position left open across a break is still a position, which is what the position row page covers.

Where do the unfamiliar words on that screen get explained?

On the words page, keyed to the labels the app actually uses.

Next screens along

The chart behind the line

What a thumb-wide window shows, and what sits outside it.

Open the chart

Pips into money

Type a size and see what one pip is actually worth to you.

Run the numbers

The order screen

Where a line in the list becomes a position with your name on it.

See the fields

Watch one line for a week, free

A demo account puts the same quotes list on the same phone with virtual money: an email, a password, no documents, no time limit. Pick one name and learn how it behaves before any of it is yours.

Open a free demo at Exness