There is nothing as important for a trader on forex market as efficient and reliable forex rates. Quotation or rate is a stock term which stands for the assets price which determines the rate at which a deal of purchase and sale of given assets may be made at a definite moment. Tic- is a minimal step of the price for quotations.

On the basis of the definition it is clear that forex rates have two varieties: buyer’s price and seller’s price (bid and asked price). Customer’s rate is called Bid, seller’s price- Ask. It is obvious that seller’s price is always lower than buyer’s price, which determines the difference on market, which is called straddle. But due to the fact that there are many buyers on the market, the deals are made constantly and the price is moving, giving new rates.

The main source of acquiring current forex quotations online for a trader is a trading terminal, which receives the rates from the server of broker’s company. Since forex market is not attached to a specific market or trading house, every market-maker (company/organization, making real deals on currency exchange) might have proper quotations on the basis of its clients’ requests. However, since all market-makers are mutually connected by reciprocal deals, the quotations of diverse market-makers do not differ greatly (the difference is either in a couple of points or zero).

Some dealing centers and brokers sometimes use artificial small shifts of quotations by two points (which do not reflect the real distribution of traders’ requests) to get additional profit in case of having proper position against its costumer’s position, which is a violation of broker’s fair work. One must avoid such dealing centers since their actions may be qualified as a fraud.

The rates of forex currency are presented in the most popular trading terminal MetaTrader 4 in three types:

1.Current rates in a dialog window “New Order”. Where one can buy/sell a pair at a given time.

2.Current moment rates are reflected in a window “Market Review”. Also it is possible to open a tic graphic in a window “Market review” (just like in the window “New order”).

3.Graphic presentation of totality of rates. There are three varieties of presenting the rates: linear, bar and candlestick.

Sometimes the terminal is not at hand when you need to find out the rates, especially if the positions are exposed. Then you might use various internet services that offer the quotations online. These rates may differ slightly from your broker’s rates (because of the reasons expressed above). For your broker’s more specific rates it is better to use the broker’s webpage, since many brokers nowadays put forex rates on their websites for their customers’ convenience.

For trading strategies modeling based on history it is necessary to have archives of forex rates. If your broker provides rate archives on the instrument of your interest it is better to use it for your strategy testing. Just add the necessary files with rate data in the folder History of your terminal, and they will automatically be displayed on the graphic and may be used in strategy tester.

And in case your broker does not provide archives of his rates or requires additional fee for that, then you may use the rate archives of MetaQuotes terminal company-developer. Just choose rates Service/Archive.

An appropriate dialogue window will appear and you will be able to choose a necessary pair or an instrument and to upload (respective button in the window) necessary rates from MetaQuotes server. Nevertheless one should remember that uploaded rates may differ from your brokers’ rates, which will result in inaccuracy when testing the strategy, especially if an average deal with your strategy has several points.

That is why it is recommended first to apply to your broker for forex rates archives. In the same dialogue window one may export/import the rates (instead of placing in history folder) and even to correct the rates.

It is advisable to check properly the quality of rates for “market rates” (rates, that have not been on the market but appeared in terminal and archives), in archives and online since your effectiveness depends on them.

Rates for trader are extremely important that is why any trader should find them and handle them correctly.