Both sides trade from North America, so almost everything happens in the New York session.
Contract size and pip size are market conventions and are the same figures the calculators on this site use.
| Symbol | USDCAD |
|---|---|
| Base currency | USD — US dollar |
| Quote currency | CAD — Canadian dollar |
| Pip size | 0.0001 |
| Standard lot | 100,000 units |
| Pip value, 1.00 lot | 10.00 CAD |
| Pip value, 0.10 lot | 1.00 CAD |
| Pip value, 0.01 lot | 0.10 CAD |
| Quoted to | 5 decimal places |
| Active sessions | New York |
This pair settles in CAD, so the pip value is fixed in CAD and moves in every other currency. The pip value calculator converts it into your account currency.
| New York | 08:00 – 17:00 New York time |
These are the business hours of the financial centres where New York and Toronto trade. Session times shift through the year with daylight saving. The live session clock shows what is open right now in your own time zone.
Releases and decisions that concern the US dollar or the Canadian dollar:
Rate decisions come from the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada. Dates and times for all of these are on the economic calendar, which is updated from the published schedule.
Spread, commission and swap are set by your broker, not by the market, and they differ by account type and by the hour. No single figure would be true for most readers, so none is given here.
The broker directory lists what each firm advertises, attributed and dated, and the spread cost calculator turns whatever your broker charges into money for a given position size.
One pip on a standard lot of USD/CAD is 10.00 CAD, because a pip is 0.0001 and a standard lot is 100,000 units. The pair is quoted in CAD, so the value in your own account currency changes with the exchange rate and is not fixed.
A standard lot is 100,000 units, a mini lot is 10,000 and a micro lot is 1,000. This is the standard contract, and it is the same at every broker.
Most brokers show a fifth decimal, and that last digit is a point or pipette, one tenth of a pip. A pip is the fourth decimal, 0.0001.
New York is the session where the currencies in this pair have their home markets open: 08:00 – 17:00 New York time. That is a statement about which centres are trading, not a promise about volatility on any particular day. The live session clock shows which one is open right now.
No. The pair settles in CAD, so each pip is worth a fixed amount of CAD and a moving amount of anything else. If your account is in dollars, euros or taka, the pip value drifts with the exchange rate through the day.
That depends entirely on your broker, your account type and the time of day, so no honest single number exists. The broker directory here lists what each firm advertises, taken from its own site and dated, and the spread cost calculator turns a spread into money for a given position size.