Trading knowledge libraryWhat Is a Trading SymbolMarket Basics
Market Basics
What Is a Trading Symbol
A trading symbol is the name a platform gives a market so that a click can find it. This paper shows you how to read a symbol's front and its tail, what five common names stand for, the specification page that holds the contract behind each name, and how to find the right version of a symbol on your own platform.
A symbol is the name a platform gives a market so that a click can find it. The front says what is traded and what it is priced in: EURUSD is the euro, priced in US dollars. Often there is a tail — .pro, .m, .r, .ecn — and the tail says which account type the price belongs to, because one broker can quote the same market to three kinds of account at three slightly different prices. Across brokers the names drift: EURUSD, EURUSDm and EUR/USD are all the same pair, and the platform's search box finds any of them from the first three letters.
Five names, and what they stand for
Five names from a typical list show how the fronts are built. EURUSD is the euro in dollars. XAUUSD is gold: XAU is the code for gold, and the price is dollars per ounce. DJ30 is the Dow Jones index of thirty American companies, and USTEC is the Nasdaq 100; both are priced in dollars per index point. BTCUSD is one bitcoin in dollars. The name tells you what is traded and in what money, and nothing else — not how many digits the price carries, not what one lot is, not when it trades. All of that is behind the name.
