Introduction to Forex Trading

Foreign Exchange is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. In other words, the currency of one country is exchanged for that of another.

The currencies of the world are on a floating exchange rate, and are always traded in pairs - Euro/Dollar, Dollar/Yen, etc. In excess of 85 percent of all daily transactions involve the trading of the major currencies - U.S. Dollar, British Pound, Euro, Swiss Franc, Japanese Yen, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar.

he Foreign Exchange market (FOREX) is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world with a daily turnover of over $2 trillion, more than three times the aggregate amount of the United States Equity and Treasury markets combined. By comparison, the currency futures market is only one percent the size of the Foreign Exchange Market.

Unlike other financial markets like the futures and stock markets, the Forex market has no physical location and no central exchange. It operates through an electronic network of banks, corporations and individuals (referred to as Interbank) trading one currency for another.

This lack of a physical exchange enables the Forex market to operate on a 24-hour basis, moving from one time zone to the next, across each of the world's major financial centers every day. Trading moves from major banking centers of the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand, to the Far East, to Europe and finally back to the U.S.

In the past, the Forex Interbank Market was not available to small speculators due to the large minimum transaction sizes and often-stringent financial requirements. Banks, major currency dealers and the occasional huge speculator used to be the principal dealers. Only they were able to take advantage of the currency market's fantastic liquidity and strong trending nature of many of the world's primary currency exchange rates.

Today, foreign exchange market maker brokers are able to break down the larger sized interbank units, and offer small traders the opportunity to buy or sell any number of these smaller units (lots). These brokers give virtually any size trader, including individual speculators or smaller companies, the option to trade the same rates and price movements as the large players who once dominated the market. Market makers quote buying and selling rates for currencies, and they profit on the difference between their buying and selling rates.