You have quoted a Swiss customer spot USD/CHF as 1.3710-15, but he asks you to quote it as CHF/USD. What do you quote?

When converting a currency pair quote from USD/CHF to CHF/USD, the quote must be inverted. USD/CHF of 1.3710-1.3715 means the dealer buys USD against CHF at 1.3710 (bid) and sells USD at 1.3715 (ask). To express this as CHF/USD, CHF becomes the base currency and USD the terms currency. The new bid rate for CHF/USD is calculated as the reciprocal of the original offer rate (1 / 1.3715 = 0.729128, rounded to 0.7291), and the new offer rate is the reciprocal of the original bid rate (1 / 1.3710 = 0.729394, rounded to 0.7294). Therefore, the correct reciprocal bid-ask spread expressed for CHF/USD is 0.7291-94.

Option A is incorrect because 1.3710-15 represents the spot quote for USD/CHF, not CHF/USD as requested by the customer.

Option B is incorrect because FX quotes are always presented with the lower bid rate first and higher ask rate second (0.7291-94), not inverted as 0.7294-91.

Option D is incorrect because Option C correctly calculates and formats the reciprocal quote required for CHF/USD.

1. ACI Financial Markets Association, ACI Dealing Certificate Study Guide, Foreign Exchange Section, Spot Quotations and Reciprocals, 2020.

2. Moosa, I. A., Foreign Exchange: Theory and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, Chapter 2 (Exchange Rate Quotations), pp. 25-30. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502123