How to decide on which currency pair to trade: EUR/USD or GBP/USD

Many times, traders wonder “which pair is the better pick”. I say, let the charts decide it for you and take all of the guess work out of it.

Since both the EUR/USD and GBP/USD have the USD in common, their differences are EUR and GBP. So if we got a “dollar move” they’re both going to be affected some. However, the real difference comes in when you directly compare EUR to GBP and see which is the stronger/weaker currency.

You can do this by looking to the EUR/GBP pair. Right now, EUR/GBP is in an obvious downtrend. This can be seen by the red downtrend line below. It can be seen by the declining 50 day simple moving average (SMA). It can also be seen by the MACD being below the zero line and its lines crossing over to the downside. This can also be seen, most recently from it breaking down out of its upward correction (red circled area
Therefore, CLEARLY right now, the stronger of the two is the GBP/USD. So if you feel that these pairs are headed higher, then go with GBP/USD. Right now, GBP/USD’s daily trend is upward, so that would be my pick.

Now if you felt that the trend was downward or turning downward, then you’d pick the “weaker candidate” to pick on which would be EUR/USD (buy strength/short weakness). However, right now, so far their daily trends are still upward as shown by the 50 period simple moving average on their daily charts.

Notice though, how much EUR/USD is struggling and how GBP/USD is starting to pop up higher right now. That’s due to the advantage of buying the stronger candidate. And right now, that’s GBP/USD when you directly compare the two.

You can do this for any pairs. For instance, now if I wanted to see if GBP or AUD were the strongest, I could look to the GBP/AUD pair. This could give me a bias as to whether I’d be better off buying GBP/USD or AUD/USD, for instance.

Currencies are a “comparative/relative” game. In other words, you always want to “rig the fight” with the absolute strongest candidate vs. the absolute weakest candidate and then “bet on that match” by buying the stronger vs. the weaker.

This, coupled with great risk management, will greatly improve your odds of success in trading. In other words, don’t over-leverage your account. You should probably be trading no more than 1 standard mini lot per $2,000-$3,000 in your account OR 1 micro lot per $200 to $300 in your micro account.