What the spread is
The spread is the gap between the price you can buy at (the Ask) and the price you can sell at (the Bid). It is one of the main ways brokers get paid, and it means every trade starts at a small loss equal to that gap — the price has to move in your favour just to break even.
Because you pay it on every single trade, seeing the spread clearly is a basic skill. On frequent, short-term trading it is often the biggest cost you face.
The numbered steps to see it
Step 1: Look at the Market Watch panel (Ctrl+M): each instrument shows a Bid and an Ask price side by side. The difference between them is the spread.
Step 2: Open the order window (double-click the instrument). The Bid and Ask are shown large; note how many pips apart they are.
Step 3: To see it on the chart itself, right-click the chart, choose Properties (F8), and enable "Show Ask line" — a second price line appears above the Bid line, and the gap between the two lines is the live spread.
Step 4: Some platforms and brokers also display the current spread as a number near the price. Watch how it changes through the day.
Why it moves around
Spreads are not fixed. They tend to be tightest when a market is busy and liquid, and they widen — sometimes dramatically — around major news, at market opens and closes, and overnight. A spread that is 1 pip most of the day can blow out to many pips for a few seconds around an announcement.
Watching the Ask line jump away from the Bid line around news is a vivid way to understand why trading straight into big announcements is expensive and risky.
An honest note
The spread is a real, guaranteed cost you pay up front on every trade, before the market has moved at all. Placing many small trades multiplies this cost quickly, which is one reason frequent trading is harder to profit from than it looks. Always factor the spread — and its habit of widening at the worst moments — into where you set stops and targets.