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 $1.9 trillion in April
2004 according to the BIS study.
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.
|