What are the bid and ask prices in forex?

The bid and ask price are the two prices in every forex quote: you sell at the bid and buy at the ask, and the ask is the higher of the two. On EURUSD quoted 1.13500/1.13512, you can sell at 1.13500 and buy at 1.13512, and the 0.00012 gap is the spread.

MetaTrader’s help puts it as “Buying is executed at the demand price (Ask), and Sell is performed at the supply price (Bid)” (MT5 help: types of orders). A quote written as two prices gives the bid first, so 1.13500/1.13512 is a bid of 1.13500 and an ask of 1.13512.

Bid and ask price in MT5: which one applies

Pending orders follow the side they trade on: a Buy Stop or Buy Limit triggers on the ask, and a Sell Stop or Sell Limit on the bid (same MT5 help page; exchange instruments trigger on the last price instead).

What the chart shows

MT5 draws the bid. Its help says “bars in the platform are formed based on Bid prices”, or last prices where a depth of market is available (MT5 chart settings). The ask, which opens longs and closes shorts, is not drawn unless you add it: right-click the chart → Properties (F8) → Show → Show Ask price line. The line shows the current ask only; past candles stay bid.

Market Watch (Ctrl+M) lists both prices side by side. Its Details view also shows the day’s highest ask (A. High) next to the highest bid (B. High) (MT5 help: Market Watch).

Worked example: a short stopped above the chart

Many traders place a short’s stop above the chart level by the typical spread and size the trade for that full distance, which the position size calculator works out. The full walk-through, including how to tell the spread from slippage with the History and Journal tabs, is in why was my stop loss hit when price never reached it.

Common mistake: “sell stop” means two things

A pending Sell Stop order, an order to sell below the market, triggers on the bid, which the chart shows. The stop loss of a sell position is checked against the ask, which the chart does not show by default. Read one as the other, and a short’s stop looks as if it was hit early.

A long’s stop loss is checked against the bid, so on a buy the chart is the right reference. If a long closed without the chart reaching its stop, the spread is not the cause: look for a stop that was moved, a chart from a different price feed, or a close that was not the stop at all. The History tab shows which.

Bid, ask and automated trading

An Expert Advisor sees both prices on every tick. The PipWarden EA measures a sell position’s progress from the ask, the price it would close at, when it moves a stop to breakeven or trails it. Its spread check before an entry, if you set a limit for the pair, is the live ask minus the bid in points. Neither changes the fact that a short’s stop can trigger while the chart stays below it. See how it works.