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What Is GBP/USD

GBP/USD is the pound priced in dollars, nicknamed cable after the 1866 telegraph wire that first carried its rate: the number is how many dollars one pound costs, a pip is its fourth decimal place and a lot is 100,000 pounds. This paper shows you the pair in five lines with the real prices of 25 August 2026; the idea as the cable under the Atlantic; the pair on the daily chart from June to September 2026; the same afternoon on the pound and the euro, 5.3 pips against 16.9; and the Market Watch row and Specification window on your platform.

Difficulty
Beginner
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

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GBP/USD, in five lines

GBP/USD is the pound priced in dollars, nicknamed cable. GBP comes first and USD second, so the number is how many dollars one pound costs: 1.36274 at 10:00 on Tuesday 25 August 2026 in this library's bars. A pip is the fourth decimal place, so 1.36274 to 1.36284 is one pip. One lot is 100,000 pounds, which at that price is 136,274 dollars, and a pip at one lot is 10 dollars. That day the pair ran from a low of 1.36218 to a high of 1.36546, 32.8 pips, which is 328 dollars at one lot from top to bottom.

The cable under the Atlantic

Picture the transatlantic telegraph cable of 1866, running under the sea from London to New York. The pound-dollar rate was one of the first things sent down it, and the rate took the wire's name: cable. The nickname is a hundred and sixty years old and still used on every dealing desk, and the pair is the same two currencies the wire carried, the pound of one city priced in the dollars of the other.

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