A ticker symbol or simply, symbol, is a series of letters, used as an abbreviation, to represent a financial instrument such as a currency pair.

A currency pair is the quotation of two different currencies, with the value of one currency being quoted against the other.

Currency pairs compare the value of one currency to another currency.

The base currency (or the first one) indicates how much of the quote currency (or the second one) is needed to purchase one unit of the base currency.

Currencies are identified by an ISO currency code, or the three-letter alphabetic code.

For example, for the U.S. dollar, the ISO code would be USD. For the Japanese yen, the ISO code would be JPY.

Currency trades involve the simultaneous purchase of one currency and sale of another, but the currency pair itself can be thought of as a single unit, which is displayed as a ticker symbol or symbol for short.

For example, USD/JPY is the symbol if you want to trade the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen.