Originally Posted by mikkom

If there wouldn't be crosses then what currency would you buy the other currencies with?

hint: If you are american that would always be USD, if european EUR.

If you go to local currency change shop and change your local money (let's say euros) to yens for example, you have actually made EURJPY long trade.

Your broker just makes it possible for you to make the trade with some other base currency than your local currency.

With stocks or commodities there is always the same binding to currency, for example oil is valuated in dollars. so when you buy oil, you are actually also speculating dollar value if you are in euro zone. (guess why oil is going up so fast? See the dollar value.)

I don't know if this clarifies it at all but at least I tried