EUR/USD going up doesn't tell you whether the euro is strong or the dollar is weak — it could be either, or both. Currency strength meters exist to answer that specific question, and it changes how you read almost every pair.
Every forex price is relative by definition — it tells you the value of one currency against exactly one other. If EUR/USD rallies, that could mean the euro is genuinely strengthening across the board, or it could mean the dollar is weakening across the board while the euro does nothing special at all. A single chart can't distinguish between these two very different situations, but they call for different trading decisions.
A currency strength meter solves this by measuring one currency's performance against a whole basket of others simultaneously, then combining that into a single relative strength score. For the US dollar, that typically means looking at its performance against the euro, pound, yen, franc, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, and New Zealand dollar all at once, then averaging the result.
If USD is rising against EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, CAD, AUD, and NZD all at the same time, that's strong, broad-based dollar strength — not a story specific to any one pair. If USD is only rising against JPY but flat or falling against everything else, that's a JPY-specific story, not genuine dollar strength, even though a USD/JPY chart alone would look similarly bullish in both scenarios.
The most straightforward practical use of currency strength is pairing the strongest currency against the weakest one, rather than trading a pair where both currencies are moving for similar, offsetting reasons. A pair made of the strongest and weakest currency in the basket tends to have the clearest, most sustained directional move — because both legs of the trade are working in the same direction, instead of one leg fighting the other.
If the strength meter shows JPY as the weakest currency and AUD as the strongest, AUD/JPY reflects both of those trends compounding together, rather than EUR/JPY or AUD/USD, where only one leg of the pair is showing a clear trend and the other is comparatively neutral.
Currency strength is a filter, not a standalone signal — it tells you which pairs currently have the clearest underlying trend on both sides, not exactly when to enter or where to place a stop. It pairs naturally with our News Blackout Checker (strength readings can shift sharply around high-impact releases for the currencies involved) and with normal technical or price-action analysis on the specific pair once you've identified it as a strong candidate.
See relative strength across all major currencies at a glance.
Open the Currency Strength Meter →