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Guide to Trading Volatile Currency Pairs: Conquer the Market
Discover effective strategies for trading volatile currency pairs, managing risk, and seizing profit opportunities in the forex market.
Forex volatility tracker
How far the major currency pairs and their main crosses have been moving, from daily ECB reference rates, and what that means for where a stop goes and how large a position can be.
The readings
AUD/JPY has been the most volatile of the 12 pairs over the last 20 fixes, at 9.2% annualised, and USD/CAD the calmest, at 3.1%.
Scroll sideways for every column.
| Pair | RateECB fix | 20-day volatility% a year | 60-day volatility% a year | 20-day vs past yearPercentile | Average daily movePips, last 20 | Latest movePips | 1-week change% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUD/JPYCross | 109.97 | 9.2% | 10.1% | Middlepercentile 48 | 48.5 | +78.8up | −0.46%down |
| AUD/USDMajor | 0.6959 | 7.7% | 6.5% | Middlepercentile 64 | 26.7 | +48.1up | −0.32%down |
| EUR/CHFCross | 0.9272 | 7.6% | 5.2% | Very highpercentile 99 | 30.1 | −32.9down | −0.44%down |
| USD/CHFMajor | 0.8240 | 6.8% | 6.5% | Middlepercentile 50 | 27.2 | −62.5down | −0.86%down |
| NZD/USDMajor | 0.5664 | 6.6% | 7.3% | Lowpercentile 17 | 17.8 | +63.1up | +0.89%up |
| EUR/JPYCross | 177.82 | 5.9% | 8.4% | Middlepercentile 48 | 50.5 | +75.6up | +0.27%up |
| EUR/USDMajor | 1.1253 | 5.7% | 4.9% | Middlepercentile 68 | 33.5 | +45.0up | +0.42%up |
| GBP/JPYCross | 210.72 | 5.7% | 8.6% | Middlepercentile 38 | 62.5 | +145.4up | +0.72%up |
| USD/JPYMajor | 158.02 | 5.7% | 9.5% | Lowpercentile 23 | 43.0 | +4.0up | −0.15%down |
| GBP/USDMajor | 1.3335 | 5.4% | 4.6% | Middlepercentile 36 | 36.4 | +88.7up | +0.87%up |
| EUR/GBPCross | 0.8439 | 3.2% | 2.6% | Middlepercentile 56 | 15.2 | −22.5down | −0.45%down |
| USD/CADMajor | 1.4161 | 3.1% | 4.5% | Lowpercentile 18 | 22.8 | −46.0down | −0.46%down |
Basis. Close-to-close: one ECB reference rate per business day, fixed around 16:00 CET. These are not intraday highs and lows, so true daily ranges are wider than the moves shown. Rates are the ECB fix of Oct 16, 2026; the latest move runs from the Oct 15 fix and the 1-week change from Oct 9.
Using the numbers
Realised volatility is how much a pair has actually been moving, expressed as a yearly percentage so that one pair can be compared with another. For a trader it is a measure of noise. A stop placed closer than a pair’s ordinary daily move is likely to be hit by day-to-day fluctuation rather than because the trade was wrong.
Over the last 20 fixes GBP/JPY has moved an average of 62.5 pips from one day’s fix to the next, and EUR/GBP 15.2. A stop sized for one would be far too tight, or far too loose, for the other.
A wider stop means a smaller position for the same amount at risk. The loss at the stop is the stop distance times the value of a pip times the size of the position, so if you double the stop to suit a livelier market, halving the position keeps the loss the same. The position size calculator does that sum for any stop, pair and account.
The two volatility columns show which way conditions are heading. A 20-day figure above the 60-day means the past month has been livelier than the past three; below it, calmer. The percentile puts today’s 20-day reading against the pair’s own year, because a level that is calm for one pair can be stormy for another.
Volatility describes the past, not the future. It can change abruptly around central bank decisions, data releases and shocks, which is when stops are most often tested.
Method
- Rates
European Central Bank euro foreign exchange reference rates, via Frankfurter, converted to US dollar terms.
Every figure is measured between consecutive daily fixes, set once each business day around 16:00 CET. They are not intraday highs and lows: a pair that swings widely during the day and ends near where it started shows almost no move, so the distance a price travels within a day is usually wider than the moves shown.
- Volatility
Annualised realised volatility: the standard deviation of daily log changes between fixes, times the square root of 252, over the last 20 and 60 changes.
daily change = natural log of (fix ÷ previous fix)volatility = standard deviation of the last 20 daily changes × √252 × 100
The 60-day column is the same over 60 changes. 252 is the usual count of trading days in a year, which turns a daily figure into a yearly one.
- Percentile
Where the current 20-day volatility sits among the daily 20-day readings of the last 250 fixes, today's included: the share of readings at or below it.
percentile = readings at or below today's ÷ readings ranked × 100
The words follow the percentile: very high from the 90th, high from the 70th, middle from the 30th, low from the 10th and very low below that. Highest and lowest mean no reading in the period was above, or below, today’s.
- Pips and moves
A pip is 0.01 for pairs quoted in Japanese yen and 0.0001 for the rest. Average move is the mean absolute change between consecutive fixes over the last 20.
average daily move = mean of |fix − previous fix| over the last 20 ÷ pip size
The latest move runs from the previous fix to the latest; the 1-week change runs from the last fix at least seven days earlier, in percent of the rate. A positive figure means the rate rose: the first currency in the pair strengthened against the second.
- Crosses
Cross rates such as EUR/GBP are calculated from each currency's ECB rate against the US dollar.
BASE/QUOTE = QUOTE per US dollar ÷ BASE per US dollar
Risk. These figures describe how prices have moved, not how they will. They are not advice. Trading leveraged currency products carries a high risk of loss. Read our financial disclaimer.