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How trading in currency pair works, underlying techniques and mechanisms
Without going into minor details, an FX transaction works essentially like this. Let's assume you have SEK 100 on your account. If you buy 100 USD/RUB at 1.00, then that transaction creates a positive cash balance on your account of USD 100 and a negative cash balance (an overdraft) of RUB 100. So right after the transaction (assuming there is not transaction cost), the "net equity" of your account is: 100 SEK + 100 USD - 100 RUB = 100 + 100 - 100 = 100 SEK. Let's say that, the day after, the RUB has gone down by 10% and the RUB 100 is now worth SEK 90 only. Your new equity is: 100 SEK + 100 USD - 100 RUB = 100 + 100 - 90 = 110 SEK and you've made 10%(*): congrats! Had you instead bought 100 SEK/RUB, the result would have been the same (assuming the USD/SEK rate constant). In practice the USD/SEK rate would probably not be constant and you would need to also account for: (*) in your example, the USD/RUB has gone up 10% but the RUB has gone down 9.09%, hence the result you find. In my example, the RUB has gone down 10% (i.e. the USD has gone up 11%).