Currencies are quoted in pairs, for example - EUR / USD or USD / JPY. The first “acronym”, currency in the pair is called “base currency”, while the second is called “counter currency”. The base currency is the one that will be used as “base” precisely for purchases and sales. For example, if you decide to buy EUR / USD, then you acquire Euros and sell U.S. Dollars. You do this if you expect the Euro to a record high against the U.S. dollar. And’ also possible that a currency pair is quoted as USD / EUR, but this method is extremely rare. Each transaction must have 2 directions - a buy and a sell (or a sale and a purchase). This means that you can not buy 100.000 EUR / USD and then exchange that value with another currency pair (eg: EUR / JPY) without first closing the initial position. Please also note that there is no way to achieve physical delivery of currency (whatever it is). For these operations are specifically banks and exchange offices, offering currency conversions at a lower rate.
