# Why does the EUR/USD exchange rate is in fact USD/EUR from a mathematical point of view?, why finance does not use the mathematical notation?

I found this answers: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-EUR-USD-traded-like-that-and-not-like-USD-EUR, but I'm not quite satisfied, I still do not understand how arranging them according to "most dominant" will help anyone at all?

By not using the mathematical notation it's a nightmare to compare exchange rates, so why is everyone still doing it?

Edit: I think I wasn't clear enough, what I would like to understand is why or how the dominant notation came to be the conventional way?, who did it?, and if people agree it's confusing, then why not change it?

• I agree with you, it is confusing at first. It is best to write EURUSD (with no slash between them) and to understand this as a price quotation for the commodity 'EUR' (the first triplet) expressed in or paid by means of 'USD' (the second triplet). This is the language that FX traders use. In the International Economics literature it is written $\frac{USD}{EUR}$ (which you can read as 'dollars per euro'). You just have to be familiar with both notations and be able to switch between them. – Alex C Jun 25 '18 at 17:41
• That / symbol doesn’t represent division here, any more than it does in, say dd/mm/yyyy date notation. To remember the convention for how to interpret an FX quote, I find it helpful to thing of an amount of money “moving” from the left to the right via multiplication. E.g we “move” 500 EUR into the USD equivalent amount by multiplying 500 by the EURUSD rate. I still have to think about it though, and I’ve been working with this stuff for some 13 years now. – MattBecker82 Jun 27 '18 at 21:16