Bid and Ask Price

The bid is the price you sell at and the ask is the price you buy at. The ask is always higher, and the gap between them is the spread, your cost of opening a trade.

KCM Academy Editorial Team
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Last updated 29 October 2026

The bid is the price you sell at and the ask is the price you buy at; the ask is always the higher of the two, and the gap between them is the spread. So every trade starts slightly behind by the spread, and the tighter the spread, the cheaper the trade.

MetaTrader 5's help puts it simply: buying is executed at the Ask and selling at the Bid. The spread, commission and swap lesson adds up the full cost of a trade.

Which price do you buy and sell at?

You open a buy at the ask and close it at the bid; you open a sell at the bid and close it at the ask. The same rule decides when your orders trigger: in MT5 a stop loss or take profit on a buy position is checked against the Bid, and on a sell position against the Ask.

Position Opens at Closes at Stop loss and take profit checked against
Buy (long) Ask Bid Bid
Sell (short) Bid Ask Ask
A EURUSD quote with Bid 1.08500 on the left and Ask 1.08510 on the right, the gap between them bracketed as the 1.0 pip spread, with Sell at Bid and Buy at Ask underneath
You sell at the bid and buy at the ask; the gap between them is the spread.

Worked example: the spread on USDZAR and EURUSD

USDZAR quotes 18.1950 bid and 18.2050 ask. You buy 0.10 lot, which is 10,000 US dollars, at the ask. The moment the trade opens, it is valued at the bid.

Step Calculation Result
Spread 18.2050 − 18.1950 0.0100, or 100 pips
Cost on 0.10 lot 0.0100 × 10,000 R100
In dollars, at 18.1950 R100 ÷ 18.195 $5.50

On EURUSD at 1.08500 bid and 1.08510 ask, the spread is 1.0 pip. On 1 lot of 100,000 euros that is 0.00010 × 100,000 = $10. The same trade size costs very different amounts on different pairs, which is why majors such as EURUSD are the cheapest to trade.

How do you see bid and ask prices in MetaTrader 5?

In MetaTrader 5, Market Watch shows the Bid, Ask and Spread for each symbol; right-click it to add the Spread column if it is hidden. Forex charts, by contrast, are drawn from Bid prices, and the Specification window shows the chart mode.

So a sell stop loss can trigger when the ask touches your level even though the candles on the chart never reached it. Leave room for the spread when you place a stop on a short.

What do traders often get wrong about bid and ask?

A common mistake is assuming the price on the chart is the price you buy at, when the chart shows the bid and buys fill at the ask. The ask sits one spread higher. On a quiet hour or around news the gap widens, so check the live spread in Market Watch before you click Buy.

The liquidity in forex page explains when spreads widen, and the OTC page explains where these quotes come from.

Sources

Learn it properly in the full lesson: Spread in Forex: What It Is, Plus Commission and Swap

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