What is Forex?

FOREX — the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.

Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.

In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.

Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.

Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with Forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.

Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $4.0 trillion in April 2010 according to the BIS triennial report.

Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.

This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).

Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading day.

About Forex

What is forex?

FOREX or Foreign Exchange market is the world largest financial market, where currency of one country is exchanged with another country through currency exchange rate system. Trader’s purpose is to get the profit as the result of foreign currencies purchase and sale. From latest assessment, Forex trading daily constitution is approximately average from 1.5 trillion to 2.5 trillion. . The free-floating of currencies being in the market turnover are determined by the supply and demand. The currency rate is actually run through telecommunication all over the network of banks 24 hours a day from 00:00 GMT on Monday to 10:00 pm GMT on Friday. Importance of human society event in the sphere of economy strongly influences the currency market. Traders gain the profit from the fluctuations in accordance with an agreed principle “buy cheaper- sell higher” or “sell higher-buy cheaper”. Forex is a continuously changing number financial system which exclusively create high trade turnover to all individual and corporative traders with an ensured liquidity of traded currencies. Due to the high potential profitability, therefore the higher risk should be essentially considered. Traders can only be the successful forex investors by going through proper training including an understanding of forex structure and types, the common techniques of analysis, the factors influencing currencies and potential risks, high confident prediction of the market movements with the trading tools and data. There are lots of simulation trading software on web, you can simply choose anyone of them for self training. This will help you to be in a better scenario. Most of the trading providers have the toll free phone number, so just call them up! Ask them question! Learn from them! Some of them may take initiative to consult you, so do write down the question from time to time.

There are many countries in world; so results different currency pairs. Among all of them, these are the popular in currency trading:

EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, EUR/CHF, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, NZD/USD, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, CHF/JPY, GBP/CHF, EUR/AUD, EUR/CAD, AUD/CAD, AUD/JPY, CAD/JPY, NZD/JPY, GBP/AUD, AUD/NZD
Five Major Currencies are:

U.S dollar - The United States dollar is the world's main currency – an universal measure to evaluate any other currency traded on Forex.

Euro- Euro was designed to become the premier currency in trading by simply being quoted in American terms. Like the U.S. dollar, the euro has a strong international presence stemming from members of the European Monetary Union.

Japanese Yen- The Japanese yen is the third most traded currency in the world; it has a much smaller international presence than the U.S. dollar or the euro. The yen is very liquid around the world, practically around the clock.

British Pound - Until the end of World War II, the pound was the currency of reference. The currency is heavily traded against the euro and the U.S. dollar, but has a spotty presence against other currencies.After the introduction of the euro, Bank of England is attempting to bring the high U.K. rates closer to the lower rates in the euro zone.

Swiss Franc - Swiss franc is the only currency of a major European country that belongs neither to the European Monetary Union nor to the G-7 countries. Although the Swiss economy is relatively small, the Swiss franc is one of the four major currencies, closely resembling the strength and quality of the Swiss economy and finance.

To have a well focusing, you have to concentrate on less than 5 currency pairs( preferred the U.S. cross-currency pairs.)

Some traders see forex as a business, and some see it as a fortune. And even some traders think forex is an art. But anyway, its highly recommended to use pivot system in your trading plan or else you are trading blind.

What is Forex?

Abbr. "FOREX" stands for Foreign Exchange, an exchange of currencies. When a person comes to trade currencies, e.g. buy one currency and sell another one - it is called currency exchange trading, or simply known as Forex.

Because the value of each currency always on the move, it fluctuates depending on the local and global economic factors, there is always an opportunity to profit on those changes/fluctuations - it is called currency speculation.


Euro, US dollar, Swiss Frank, British Pound and Japanese Yen - these are the most traded currencies in Forex. Of course, trading is not limited to those currencies, Forex offers variety of currencies one can trade.

If to describe in simple words how individuals trade Forex it would look next way:

Forex trading in its prevailing volume is done online.
A person finds a Forex broker, opens a trading account with the broker and deposits money.
Forex broker provides to trader so called Forex trading platform - an application, a working environment, where trader buys and sells currencies, dealing online - in other words he speculates to make money on the difference of currency rates.

In Forex currencies are traded in pairs.

EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/JPY, USD/CHF and so on.
FOREX

The first currency in the exchange pair is referred to as the base currency and the second as the quote currency.
For example, EUR/USD exchange rate = 1.400
Here the price of the Euro is expressed in US dollars: 1 euro = 1.400 dollars
The exchange rate tells to trader how much of the quote currency should be paid to obtain one unit of the base currency.


A Quick Overview of FOREX


FOREX is a spot market, where foreign currencies are traded - bought and sold for profit.

FOREX is a worldwide currency speculation arena with no centralized place for trading and exchange.

FOREX is a huge market with trillions dollars turnover a day and the largest investors - banks, hedge funds, investment companies and so on.

FOREX is open to individual retail investors - Forex traders - through the services of Forex brokerage companies that provide an access to the currency exchange market and take care of buying and selling orders of their clients.

FOREX is a 24 hour market that is traded every day all year round, except for holidays.

FOREX allows trading over 150 foreign currency pairs, among which the most traded are: EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, AUDUSD, USDCHF, USDCAD and GBPJPY.

FOREX trading is based on technical (price charts) and fundamental (news, economic events) analysis.

FOREX is an online stay-at-home type of business for individual investors.

FOREX is an attractive financial instrument, which can be mastered by any person with any kind of education and/or social status.

FOREX is a type of market which nowadays can also be traded by automated online expert advisors without any human intervention.

FOREX is an alternative type of investment, which unlike any other investment carries one of the largest financial risks.

FOREX is a trading arena, where in order to succeed a trader needs to learn the rules of the market, its trends, moves and behavior, and be able to apply the knowledge under real trading conditions.

FOREX is difficult to trade without a trading method - a trading strategy or system.

FOREX is a fast growing industry, and by directly dealing with money it also became
a lucrative business to various scam dealers. Novice traders should be alert about any offers in Forex which sound too good to be true.

Finally, FOREX should never be associated with quick and easy money.