Forex - Does initial currency invested matter?

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: CatsLoveJazz Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/49605 License: CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. My question is around the base currency and what bearing, if any, this has on the to the initial currency you invest when opening a trading account. For example, I live in the UK so I open an account with a broker with £10k GBP of capital. It's clear to me how I can then trade on say GBP/USD where I am buying USD with my initially invested GBP. How does this work in the case I want to trade EUR/USD? Or, if I decide to open a short position with a GBP/USD pair (buying GBP with USD)? Thanks

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Yosef Weiner Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/49608 License: CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. You have a couple options: Borrow the currency you want to sell, and pledge your GBP as collateral. Then there will probably be an exchange of interest based on the GBP rate versus the currency your are borrowing, as well as margin calls if the FX rate of the borrowed currency vs GBP drops substantially Trade a forward contract, collateralized by your GBP. Similar economics to the above, but with the term of the forward added in