The forex majors are usually defined as the four most heavily traded currency pairs in the global forex market – the EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, and the USD/CHF.
The principal advantage of the majors is the high volume and liquidity they offer. This makes it easy to open and close huge positions with usually little or no slippage from target prices.
The majors are the currencies of the largest economies in the world, traded in huge volumes by global financial institutions every day. So they often move sharply in response to fundamental economic factors such as changes in interest rates, trade balances, GDP, employment, and inflation.
That said, the big four currency pairs can be traded in the same way as any other pair or financial instruments such as stocks or commodities.So traders who prefer to trade with the trend can look to use swing trading strategies such as bullish or bearish flags, pennants, triangles, or perhaps the cup and handle.
The Euro/United States dollar (EUR/USD) is the most highly traded of all currency pairs and the overlap between the European and American trading sessions typically provides for significant volume and momentum.
Similar considerations apply to the GBP/USD pair, which is also the pair that tends to show the sharpest daily moves and is therefore particularly attractive to traders.
Just as inflation weakens a currency, deflation tends to strengthen it; so years of relative economic decline in Japan have paradoxically made its currency an attractive “safe haven” for large financial institutions and other investors.