Base Currency

Base Currency
The first currency in the pair is known as the base currency, and it's the important one.
Its value is always one in the exchange rate, and it controls the direction of
the trade and the chart. The second currency is called the cross.

For example:

In the GBP/USD, the British pound is the base currency and the U.S. dollar is the cross.
If the price on this pair is 1.7609, that means that one pound is worth 1.7609 U.S. dollars.
If the chart goes up, that means the pound is strengthening against the dollar;
if it goes down, the dollar is strengthening against the pound.

Because a purchase automatically includes two currencies, one being traded against the other,
it's just as possible to make a profit in a bear market as a bull market. For the same reason,
there's no prohibition against selling short in Forex trading as there is in the stock market;
it's built into the system.