Bid, ask and spread explained simply
Look at any market in MetaTrader and you will see two prices.
- Bid: the price you can sell at.
- Ask: the price you can buy at (slightly higher).
- Spread: the gap between them. It is a cost: a new trade starts slightly negative because of it.
Example (made-up numbers): if Bid is 1.1000 and Ask is 1.1002, the spread is 0.0002. Buy, and you pay 1.1002. Sell straight away, and you would get only 1.1000.
Spreads change. They often widen around important news and in quiet hours, when fewer people are trading. On some markets the spread is a bigger share of a small move than on others.
Practise: in your demo, write down the spread of three markets at two different times of day, and compare.
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Trading involves significant risk of loss. Practise on a demo account first. Holy Trading Science provides education, not financial advice.