I only just figured out why I always get thrown off by all kinds of symbols when looking at forex charts—the truth is that the US dollar sign $, the euro sign €, and the British pound sign £ are basically internationally recognized quick identifiers.

To be honest, instead of writing “40 US dollar,” it’s much easier to just write “$40,” and you immediately know what currency it is. This is especially important in forex trading—for example, once you see EUR/USD, you instantly know it refers to the exchange rate of euros to US dollars.

What’s most interesting is that many symbols are actually used by multiple countries. The US dollar sign $ is used by more than 30 countries, which is why you’ll see distinctions like US$, NT$ (New Taiwan dollar), and HK$ (Hong Kong dollar). Also, the ￥ symbol is used by Japan to represent the yen, while in China it’s used to represent the renminbi—you have to add a code when writing it to tell them apart.

I specifically put together the currency codes and symbols for commonly used countries. For instance, Japanese yen is JPY¥, Korean won is KRW₩, Thai baht is THB฿, and rupee is INR₹—each one has its own distinctive symbol. If you want to quickly type the euro symbol € on a Mac, press Shift+option+2; on Windows, press Alt+E. The US dollar sign is even simpler—both systems use Shift+4.

The easiest one to confuse is probably the ฿ symbol: in forex, it represents the Thai currency, but in the crypto world, it stands for Bitcoin—completely different things. When investing, you must clearly check the context; otherwise, if you mix them up, it can become a real hassle.

In the forex market, these symbols and codes are like a universally understood language. Once you learn them, trading really does become a lot more convenient.