Forexmarketing-solutions

How do I manage risk?

2009-01-22T00:27:00.000-08:00

The most common risk management tools in FX trading are the limit order and the stop loss order. A limit order places restriction on the maximum price to be paid or the minimum price to be received. A stop loss order ensures a particular position is automatically liquidated at a predetermined price in order to limit potential losses should the market move against an investor's position. The liquidity of the Forex market ensures that limit order and stop loss orders can be easily executed.

How are currency prices determined?

2009-01-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

Currency prices are affected by a variety of economic and political conditions, most importantly interest rates, inflation and political stability. Moreover, governments sometimes participate in the Forex market to influence the value of their currencies, either by flooding the market with their domestic currency in an attempt to lower the price, or conversely buying in order to raise the price. This is known as Central Bank intervention. Any of these factors, as well as large market orders, can cause high volatility in currency prices. However, the size and volume of the Forex market makes it impossible for any one entity to "drive" the market for any length of time.

How long are positions maintained?

2009-01-19T00:20:00.000-08:00

Approximately 80% of all forex trades last seven days or less, while more than 40% last fewer than two days. As a general rule, a position is kept open until one of the following occurs: 1) realization of sufficient profits from a position; 2) the specified stop-loss is triggered; 3) another position that has a better potential appears and you need these funds.

How often are trades made?

2009-01-17T00:20:00.000-08:00

Market conditions dictate trading activity on any given day. As a reference, the average small to medium trader might trade as often as 10 times a day. Most importantly, because most Forex Brokers don't charge commission, traders can take positions as often as necessary without worrying about excessive transaction costs.

FOREX.com

2009-01-16T04:56:00.000-08:00

FOREX.com is a division of GAIN Capital Group, a dedicated partner to professional FX traders and fund managers worldwide. Institutional services include IB programs, white label solutions, and asset management. Individual forex traders can take advantage of the market expertise and financial strength of GAIN Capital Group and access an institutional FX trading platform, FOREXTrader, along with our powerful real-time forex charts, professional forex market research, and suite of advanced forex trading tools. For traders new to the currency trading, FOREX.com offers forex training programs, forex minis, and information about trading the foreign currency market.

Is Forex trading expensive?

2009-01-12T00:26:00.000-08:00

No. Most online Forex brokers allow customers to execute margin trades at up to 100:1 leverage. This means that investors can execute trades of $100,000 with an initial margin requirement of $1000. However, it is important to remember that while this type of leverage allows investors to maximize their profit potential, the potential for loss is equally great. A more pragmatic margin trade for someone new to the FX markets would be 20:1 but ultimately depends on the investor's appetite for risk.

What does it mean have a 'long' or 'short' position?

2009-01-11T00:20:00.000-08:00

In trading parlance, a long position is one in which a trader buys a currency at one price and aims to sell it later at a higher price. In this scenario, the investor benefits from a rising market. A short position is one in which the trader sells a currency in anticipation that it will depreciate. In this scenario, the investor benefits from a declining market. However, it is important to remember that every FX position requires an investor to go long in one currency and short the other.

What is a Limit order?

2009-01-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

A limit order is an order with restrictions on the maximum price to be paid or the minimum price to be received. As an example, if the current price of USD/YEN is 117.00/05, then a limit order to buy USD would be at a price below 117.05. (ie 116.50).

Tips for New Forex Traders

2009-01-06T00:08:00.000-08:00

Forex has always been a magnet for investors and traders, who are looking for an exciting business venture to invest in, giving them the thrill, adventure and excitement, along with an idea of a quick and easy way to make profits.

But, for those who are relatively new to the Forex trading world, it is extremely important to know exactly what you are getting into. When it comes to the matter of investing a huge amount of your hard earned money into something, first time investors should always make sure what they ought to expect out of it. What should and should not be done. What steps should be taken to play safe and what to do that keeps them at away from the frauds and scams.

First of all what needs to be learnt is, what is Forex and how does it work? What need’s to be known next are a few important trading tips, which will facilitate you during your transactions.

Foreign Exchange or Forex or FX is one of the biggest money market in the world, and is a platform where currency is sold and bought freely between buyers and sellers. Forex, unlike any other financial markets, has no physical location or central exchange.

With over $1.5 trillion USD being traded daily, the foreign exchange market has now become a market which is open to trading by an average investor as much as it is open to a high investor.

Launched over three decades back, in the early seventies, Market Forex introduced free exchange rates worldwide, according to which, the price of the currencies was determined on the basis of demand and supply only.

A number of reasons are responsible for making Forex a distinctive financial market. To begin with, no external regulatory authority is allowed to set or fix currency prices or rates in this market, making Forex is market which cannot be controlled in any way. Also, it is one of those few money markets that necessitate very little trading education, training and experience.

In order to know the Forex market well, the new traders should know how to start trading Forex. The few important things to be kept in mind when beginning to trade Forex are as follows:

What needs to be done firstly is, to open a Forex account. This can be done by filling up an application form, providing the required essential credentials, like personal details, financial particulars, and other details such as whether or not, a broker will be allowed to mediate with any trade if it appears to get too precarious and dicey.

Once your account has been created and recognized, you can begin to flow cash in to it and start trading Forex.

New Forex traders are always advised to create two accounts while trading, one of them being a real account, while the other being a demo one. A real account will facilitate the trader to actually trade in the market, with real money.

The demo account helps the new investor learn more about the trading business. This way the new trader can practice his moves of trading in the market, without the fear of losing all his money in case he/ she goofs up or ends up making the wrong deal.

Also, before you start trading in the market, you should have a closer look at all the top five foreign currencies and their current rates to make sure, you are aware of the current rates and are not missing anything.

The top five Forex currencies are: Pound/USD, Swiss franc/USD, Euro/Yen, USD/Yen and Euro/USD.

Always keep a check on the market. With the time intervals on hourly, daily and weekly schedules with all the currencies that are in any way related to your trade.

Being a successful trader requires to come up with individual and unique trading strategies. There is no “Golden Mantra” or “Trade Secret”, which will work for the traders.

Every investor needs to come up with their own, personal and distinctive trading approach when it comes to the market. There are different ways by which, the traders approach the market. Sometimes they may bank solely on industrial and technical analysis.

Some may like better to go in for a more elementary and basic approach for trading, while others may make use of the past records of the market, combined with both technical as well as fundamental techniques for trading.

All these strategies help the traders in studying the patterns of currency price trends and movements, making it easier for them to foresee the course of the potential developments in the Forex market.

Currency prices in Forex market mostly move in trends. They have a pattern, through which, certain movements can be studied. Some of these movements which have been studied over several years mostly help in discovering that pattern in the market trend. These trends are what should be recognized and valued properly, to facilitate the creation of an excellent trading strategy.

Any factors, financial or political, having some control over the value or the price of a currency, have already been measured by the market to be included as an important factor in creating a price trend.

When trading for the first time, it is always advisable to invest by the trends. Trading with a trend can facilitate you by advancing your chances with profit. Many new investors are enthusiastic to start trading as soon as they can, eventually ending up trading in any direction.

Trading by a trend or following a pattern and studying the market can increase your odds of being favored by the market, making your trading prospects high.

Money made trading currencies

2009-01-05T00:08:00.000-08:00

Currencies are traded on a point or pip system. A pip is another word for a point in the currency trading arena. Traders are trying to capture points. Depending on the currency, each point is worth a different amount. For example; the British Pound is worth about $10 per point that is traded per lot. If you trade 1 lot and capture 40 points, you just made $400. If you trade 10 lots and capture 40 points, you just made $4,000.00, etc.

Futures and FOREX?

2009-01-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

Currencies are the money that represent the monetary system from different countries. For example; the Japanese Yen, Canadian dollar, Brazilian Real, Swiss Franc, etc. Futures trading of currencies is done in trading pits, where you are trading those currencies today, but for future prices. FOREX trading is trading actual currencies at today's exchange rate with banks. All trades are done through brokers or market makers.

What is a margin account?

2009-01-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

Margin account is a bond account. It is like a savings account. Before you can trade, you need to place a certain amount of money in what is called a margin account. You are guaranteeing other traders that you can pay them if you lose. That account is overseen by your broker. He monitors your account when you trade. He usually will not allow you to risk more than what is in your margin account. The margin account exists so, as you win on a daily basis, they have a place to deposit your money. Conversely, when you lose, they have an account to withdraw the money.

What is a Stop Loss order?

2008-12-30T00:20:00.000-08:00

A stop loss order is an order type whereby an open position is automatically liquidated at a specific price. Often used to minimize exposure to losses if the market moves against an investor's position. As an example, if an investor is long USD at 156.27, they might wish to put in a stop loss order for 155.49, which would limit losses should the dollar depreciate, possibly below 155.49.

Easy Money

2008-12-29T00:13:00.000-08:00

Easy money is also one of the most common reasons why people are attracted towards Forex market and trading. As seen on television or movies, they believe it easily when heroes turn into millionaires with just one bet.

Seeing along with it, how easy it is to trade, people want to become traders and invest whatever little they can afford, just to become rich easily.

Indeed it is easy to trade and the market is open for anyone who wants to come in and trade. But the main reason to enter into the market is to make money, an aspect of Forex trading which is not easy at all.

Making profits or accomplishing constant profits is a hard nut to crack in reality. It is something that needs and involves a lot of learning, persistence, restraint, dedication, and lots of other qualities, which are not that easy to keep up with.

What is Forex Market?

2008-12-26T00:11:00.000-08:00

The biggest money market in the world, Foreign Exchange or Forex or FX is a platform where money is sold and bought freely between buyers and sellers. With over $1.5 trillion USD being traded daily, the foreign exchange market has now become a market which is open to trading by an average investor as much as it is open to a high investor.

The power of setting or fixing a price for each currency is with the participants of the market, the buyers or the sellers, who decide the price of one currency against the other.

Forex Market is also free and independent from all or any outside control and is open to all, as far as free and fair competition is concerned, making it the perfect market to invest in.

Today, Forex market deals in over hundred times the every day trading done in the New York Stock Exchange. The Forex market is an over-the-counter market in which buyers and sellers trade through different means of communication such as telephone, fax or internet network rather than being physically present on the exchange location.

The major reason for this is that contrasting to other money markets, the Foreign Exchange market neither has a physical location nor any central exchange. And it is this lack of physical exchange, which enables the Forex market to trades incessantly, 24 hours a day, going from one time zone to the other, from the world’s one major economic center to another, day after day.

Beginning since 1997 till date, more than a trillion dollars of foreign exchange activity has been taking place at Forex, day after day. The every day forex trading quantity escalated from US$5 billion to US$1.5 trillion approximately. At this pace, it can be said for sure that the Forex market continues to grow at an exceptional rate.

Going back to the time when Foreign Exchange market had been launched, before the Internet geared up its popularity, Forex was only limited to big companies, transnational or global banks and affluent corporate individuals, who could trade currencies in the market through the bank-owned trading systems.

During that time, opening an account for trading required a deposit of as much as US$1 million. It was only with the advent of Internet and online technology, that today, investors can open an account as well as trade successfully, with only a few thousand dollars.

Brokers are a significant part of this trading industry. It is only because of these Forex Brokers, that this Foreign Exchange market is a nonstop cash market, with a continuous buying and selling of currencies of different nations.

Forex market conditions are highly unpredictable in nature and change every second, with fluctuation in price being the only constant factor in this trading. This is the main reason why, at times, Forex is also known as a highly fickle and fragile market.

Forex today, provides a great substitute to the stock market trading for the traders and investors. Although Stock Exchange provides a far larger variety of stocks to trade in, Forex offers only a few major currencies to trade for, where in the US Dollar, Yen, British Pound, Swiss Franc, and Euro, are the most popular ones.

Trading such big currencies is definitely more exciting for the investors than the stocks, and it can be seen that more and more traders and investors are now turning towards Currency trading to get the real thrill of the trading business.

Forex Day Trading Prospects

2008-12-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

Compared to Equities or Futures, it can be easily said that the Forex market has several advantages and benefits. And Forex being a 24-hour market gives Currency trading the biggest advantage ever.

With no external control and a market open to all, Forex is the perfect currency trading platform to invest in. with the power in the hands of the currency traders, to choose any time of day to trade, whenever they want to, Forex trading basically puts the traders or investors in charge of how they want to trade and how much as well.

This is also because of the fact that Forex currency trading requires a very less amount of starting investment, which can easily enable a trader to open an account and start trading, unlike the cases in Stock Exchange and Futures market, where in, a fair amount of capital is required to start trading.

This facilitates trading for individuals or small traders, who can easily start trading small in the Forex market.

Being a round the clock market, Forex day trading enables the investor to select any time to trade, whatever is more suitable to him/her. Allowing trading for 5 and a half days a week, 24 hours a day, provides Forex traders with incomparable freedom leaving the decision for currency trading in their hands, whenever they want to, and not when the market allows them.

The Forex market is known as the Day Trading market because of the reason that basically, it trails the sun going around the world, and shifting from one main economic or banking center to another, starting from the United States to Australia, to New Zealand to the Far East, and towards Europe and then, again back to the United States.

With Forex, all through a trading day, the currency trading volume on the whole is established by two factors, one being which markets are open, and second being the time when every one of these Forex markets partly overlap one another.

The currency price at Forex day trading market, changes every second. One second a currency is up, the other second the other beats it to go high. Currency trading volume at Forex market remains high throughout, but it hits the highest point when the U.S, London and European markets are open, all at the same time, which only happens between the time periods of 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. by the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

As compared to the high volume of the U.S market, the level of the Pacific border markets, Japan and Hong Kong for instance, is quite low, but this still provides a Forex investor the opportunity to study and explore the vastly traded markets and currencies of the Pacific Region.

With more than $2 trillions of money being traded every day, Forex market is indisputably the biggest fiscal or financial market in the whole world. Here, the investors need to focus only on a few major currencies, rather than hundreds of equity or stocks. Forex market also is known for its fair costs and thin spreads.

Furthermore, Forex market has high levels of liquidity as compared to any other financial market and this is what makes Currency trading market the biggest economic market in the whole world. This liquidity largely comes from the banks which provide liberal cash flow to individual investors, companies and trade houses. And since the Forex market is a 24 hour market, the currency exchange trading experiences superior liquidity around the clock, as compared to the stock market, which contains a limited time period for high liquidity.

The instant trading through various means of communication such as phone and internet makes Forex day trading an instant trading business alongside making it a global trading platform.

With such high levels of liquidity, round the clock trading and steady trading prospects, Forex currency exchange market is undoubtedly one of the most profitable and potential business sectors.

Another basic benefit offered by the Forex market is that it is a no-commission market. With this free of commission trading, an investor gets to keep whole of the profit that he has earned through a day’s trading at the market. Keeping 100% of the profit is indeed a great deal for any trader today!

Taking advice from proficiently experienced Forex brokers will get you standard features like 100:1 leverage and regulated FCM status along with commission-free trading, to make your trading experience more professional.

Mental adjustment

2008-12-15T00:12:00.000-08:00

Considered as one of the most undervalued issue when talking about trading matters and market, Mental adjustment is one of the main matters to be kept in mind when entering or deciding about entering into the trading world.

So many psychological issues such as ego, greed, proud, to name a few come into the picture when traders trade with each other. All these issues are a matter of significance as they determine whether to make or mar a deal.

Above mentioned are some of the most common hurdles and shortcomings faced by the traders, new and old, everyday.

It is not easy to trade. What one needs is the skill, education, patience, perseverance and the right kind of attitude to deal with any situation whatsoever, sportingly.

Market will someday show us profits and some days, loss. What we need to learn is to take risk, but with precautions.

What’s Money Management?

2008-12-02T00:13:00.000-08:00

A significant characteristic of any form of trading is the finances. Some people feel that they need to think about money management only when they have sufficient amount of profitable cash in hand. What they forget is that the trading involves a huge amount of risk in it too.

Only when a trader trades keeping in mind money management, it lets his profits to enhance systematically, while limiting his risk with each trade. Money management lets a trader know, how much he can afford to lose.

Forex or Foreign Exchange

2008-11-16T00:06:00.000-08:00

FX, Forex or Foreign Exchange, is all about exchange of currencies from one hand to another at an ongoing price in the market. Forex is all about investing money in foreign currencies, just gain profit by selling at a higher price, the one you hold, just to buy another one at a lower price. Earlier, not many traders were clear about the Forex trading and that Forex is just short for "foreign exchange", as it did not get much publicity through media.

Foreign Exchange market is the biggest financial market in the world, with a potential of fast and great gains and a sizable number of investors. The advent of internet technology is what made Forex trading grow considerably popular as well as accessible with various types of investors.

About a decade ago, currency trading was only limited to large banks and financial firms because they were the only ones to have access to the tools and methods required to trade Forex market. However recently, due to up and coming efficient online platforms, technology has advanced to the point of being accessible to any and every individual trader who wishes to trade or invest in Forex. Marketforex.net being one of finest online trading platforms is easily accessible by all who are interested in investing in Forex.

Education

2008-11-06T00:12:00.000-08:00

Education makes the foundation for any business, service or job or any other discipline, to be successful. Full knowledge about a matter one is dealing in, helps his/her understand in depth, what needs to be done.

Trading too, necessitates its traders to have thorough study and knowledge about the stream. Experience is of valuable significance here. Anyone with a high level of expertise or experience in the trading market can guide a new trader correctly. Although, one needs to beware of some experts who might get a newbie going on the wrong side of it all.

Market is a teacher in itself, teaching everyday to a number of traders on what should have been done in a particular situation. Education, in terms of currency trading can take as many years as one can think of.

The market can prove any expert wrong at any point. So it is always said in terms of the market, that the learning never ends here!

How can I get started?

2008-10-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

You need to be very careful and exercise due diligence. There are growing numbers of international firms offering various approaches to FOREX trading. Look before you leap. Do your homework and check references. Many companies prey on the greedy promising phenomenal returns that are the exception, not the rule! Find a company that doesn't promise the moon. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Reputable firms have credentials.

Beware of "Black Box" systems. It is against FTC regulations for a firm to offer any guarantee of performance of any system. What one can guarantee and offer is that their trading methodology is sound, productive and profitable.

Trading decisions should not be made by computer only. A professional trader is a human being, with emotions, intuition and a brain to interpret what the computer tells him/her. A trader is not a computer. A professional trader has been educated and is disciplined to live by his or her trading methodology of good judgment trading.

What is the difference between an "intraday" and "overnight position"?

2008-10-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

Intraday positions are all positions which are opened and closed anytime during normal trading. Overnight positions are positions that are still on at the end of normal trading hours, which are usually rolled over by your Forex broker (based on the currencies interest rate differentials) to the next day's price.

Trade Secret

2008-09-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Traders spend years trying to discover the so called “Trade Secret”. A secret known to just a few other traders, which can turn them into a billionaire, overnight!

There is no such thing as a “Trade Secret”, which can make someone rich overnight. This is because of the fact that in the Forex market, Change is the only thing permanent! Every instant is only one of its kinds. Traders should work on discovering a Forex trading system that suits their own individuality and behavior, so that they can easily follow it.

Forex, Currencies and Fiscal matters have always attracted people by being an unpredictable, yet, challenging and exciting arena to explore. People are hence, attracted to becoming a Trader.

But if exploration and adventure are the only reasons for certain traders to join trading in the Forex market, they are soon about to realize how costly this quest turns out for them.

What kind of trading strategy should I use?

2008-08-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

Currency traders make decisions using both technical factors and economic fundamentals. Technical traders use charts, trend lines, support and resistance levels, and numerous patterns and mathematical analyses to identify trading opportunities, whereas fundamentalists predict price movements by interpreting a wide variety of economic information, including news, government-issued indicators and reports, and even rumor. The most dramatic price movements however, occur when unexpected events happen. The event can range from a Central Bank raising domestic interest rates to the outcome of a political election or even an act of war. Nonetheless, more often it is the expectation of an event that drives the market rather than the event itself.

When is the FX market open for trading?

2008-08-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

A true 24-hour market, Forex trading begins each day in Sydney, and moves around the globe as the business day begins in each financial center, first to Tokyo, then London, and New York. Unlike any other financial market, investors can respond to currency fluctuations caused by economic, social and political events at the time they occur - day or night.

Is your broker established and regulated?

2008-08-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

It is extremely important to know whether the broker you want to choose, is established and regulated or not. Choosing an established broker can confirm you about his reputation and the amount of expertise he has about the market.

A regulated broker will ensure credibility in your trade. This is because of the fact that every regulated broker has to present his fiscal reports to the regulatory bodies, such as local regulatory bodies like NFA (National Futures Association) or FDF (Swiss Federal Department of Finance) for US traders and brokers.

These reports, if failed to be presented, can give these bodies the right to penalize them to the extent of even expiring their market membership as a broker.

Such stringent rules and orders compel all these Forex brokers to maintain see-through fiscal reports. Also, such regulations on brokers facilitate the traders and depositors to trade safely, hence increasing their overall investor security.

What is Foreign Exchange?

2008-07-26T00:20:00.000-07:00

The Foreign Exchange market, also referred to as the "Forex" market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average turnover of approximately US$1.2 trillion. Foreign Exchange is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. The world's currencies are on a floating exchange rate and are always traded in pairs, for example Euro/Dollar or Dollar/Yen.

Where is the central location of the FX Market?

2008-07-04T00:19:00.000-07:00

FX Trading is not centralized on an exchange, as with the stock and futures markets. The FX market is considered an Over the Counter (OTC) or 'Interbank' market, due to the fact that transactions are conducted between two counterparts over the telephone or via an electronic network.

What is Margin?

2008-06-19T00:20:00.000-07:00

Margin is essentially collateral for a position. It allows traders to take on leveraged positions with a fraction of the equity necessary to fund the trade. In the equity markets, the usual margin allowed is 50% which means an investor has double the buying power. In the forex market leverage ranges from 1% to 2%, giving investors the high leverage needed to trade actively.

Who are the participants in the FX Market?

2008-06-04T00:18:00.000-07:00

The Forex market is called an 'Interbank' market due to the fact that historically it has been dominated by banks, including central banks, commercial banks, and investment banks. However, the percentage of other market participants is rapidly growing, and now includes large multinational corporations, global money managers, registered dealers, international money brokers, futures and options traders, and private speculators.

Terms

2008-05-28T17:56:00.002-07:00

Generally in thinking about options, one assumes that one is buying an asset: for instance, you can have a call option on oil, which allows you to buy oil at a given price. One can consider this situation more symmetrically in FX, where one exchanges: a put on GBPUSD allows one to exchange GBP for USD: it is at once a put on GBP and a call on USD.

As a vivid example: people usually consider that in a fast food restaurant, one buys hamburgers and pays in dollars, but one can instead say that the restaurant buys dollars and pays in hamburgers.

There are a number of subtleties that follow from this symmetry.

Ratio of notionals
The ratio of the notionals in an FX option is the strike, not the current spot or forward. Notably, when constructing an option strategy from FX options, one must be careful to match the foreign currency notionals, not the local currency notionals, else the foreign currencies received and delivered don't offset and one is left with residual risk.
Non-linear payoff
The payoff for a vanilla option is linear in the underlying, when one denominates the payout in a given numéraire. In the case of an FX option on a rate, one must be careful of which currency is the underlying and which in the numéraire: in the above example, an option on GBPUSD gives a USD value that is linear in GBPUSD (a move from 2.0000 to 1.9000 yields a .10 * $2,000,000 / 2.0000 = $100,000 profit), but has a non-linear GBP value in GBPUSD. Conversely, the GBP value is linear in the USDGBP rate, while the USD value is non-linear in the USDGBP rate. This is because inverting a rate has the effect of x \mapsto 1/x, which is non-linear.
Change of numéraire
the implied volatility of an FX option depends on the numéraire of the purchaser, again because of the non-linearity of x \mapsto 1/x.

http://www.fxswingtraders.com

Example

2008-05-28T17:56:00.001-07:00

For example a GBPUSD FX option might be specified by a contract allowing the owner to sell £1,000,000 and buy $2,000,000 on December 31. In this case the pre-agreed exchange rate, or strike price, is 2.0000 GBPUSD or 0.5000 USDGBP and the notionals are £1,000,000 and $2,000,000 (£1,000,000 from the eyes of a USD investor, $2,000,000 from the eyes of a GBP investor).

This type of contract is both a call on dollars and a put on sterling, and is often called a GBPUSD put by market participants, as it is a put on the exchange rate; it could equally be called a USDGBP call, but isn't, as market convention is to quote the 2.0000 number (normal quote), not the 0.5000 number (inverse quote).

If the rate is lower than 2.0000 GBPUSD come December 31 (say at 1.9000 GBPUSD), meaning that the dollar is stronger and the pound is weaker, then the option will be exercised, allowing the owner to sell GBP at 2.0000 and immediately buy it back in the spot market at 1.9000, making a profit of (2.0000 USD/GBP - 1.9000 USD/GBP)*1,000,000 GBP = 100,000 USD in the process. If they immediately exchanges their profit into GBP, this amounts to 100,000/1.9000 = 52,631.58 GBP.

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Foreign exchange option

2008-05-28T17:55:00.001-07:00

In finance, a foreign exchange option (commonly shortened to just FX option or currency option) is a derivative financial instrument where the owner has the right but not the obligation to exchange money denominated in one currency into another currency at a pre-agreed exchange rate on a specified date.

The FX options market is the deepest, largest and most liquid market for options of any kind in the world. Most of the FX option volume is traded OTC and is lightly regulated, but a fraction is traded on exchanges like the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for options on futures contracts: the global market for exchange-traded currency options is notionally valued by the Bank for International Settlements at $158,300 million in 2005.

http://www.fxswingtraders.com

Currency correlation

2008-05-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

Currency correlation is a statistical measure of the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two currency pairs. Currency correlation is computed as a correlation coefficient. In the broader sense, currency correlation can refer to the correlation between any currency pairs and the commodities, stocks and bonds markets.

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Spread

2008-05-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

The quotation of a currency pair usually consists of two prices. The lower price (bid) is the price at which a market maker or a brokerage in general is willing to buy the first currency of a pair. The higher price (offer or ask) is the price at which a brokerage is willing to sell the first currency of a pair. The spread is the difference between the two prices. For example if the quotation of EUR/USD is 1.3607/1.3609, then the spread is EUR 0.0002 (or 2 pips). The more popular the pair is, the smaller the differences or spreads. Different brokerage firms have different spreads.

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Pips

2008-05-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

A pip is the smallest number in a quotation of a currency.

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Cross Rates

2008-05-28T17:51:00.001-07:00

Cross rate is a currency pair that does not include USD, such as GBP/JPY. Pairs that involve the EUR are called euro crosses, such as EUR/GBP. All other currency pairs (those that don't involve USD or EUR) are generally referred to as cross rates.

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Majors

2008-05-28T17:50:00.001-07:00

Majors are the most liquid and widely traded currency pairs in the world. Trades involving majors make up about 90% of total Forex trading.

The Majors are: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, AUD/USD and USD/CAD.

GBP/USD is the only currency pair with its own name. It is known as "Cable", which has its origins from the days when a cable under the Atlantic synchronized the GBP/USD rate between the London and New York markets. But there are also lots of abbreviations for other currency pairs such as:
AUD/USD ... "Aussie"
EUR/USD ... "Euro"
GBP/JPY ... "Geppy"
GBP/USD ... "Cable"
NZD/USD ... "Kiwi"
USD/CAD ... "Loonie"
USD/CHF ... "Swissy"
USD/JPY ... "Gopher"
USD/CAD ... "Beaver"

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Currency pair

2008-05-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

A currency pair depicts a quotation of two different currencies. The first currency in the pair is the base currency or transaction currency. The second currency in the pair is labelled quote currency, payment currency or counter currency. Such a quotation depicts how many units of the counter currency are needed to buy one unit of the base currency.

For example the quotation EUR/USD 1.2500 means that one euro is exchanged for 1.25 US dollar. If the quote moves from EUR/USD 1.2500 to EUR/USD 1.2510, the euro is getting stronger and the dollar weaker. On the other hand if the EUR/USD quote moves from 1.2500 to 1.2490 the euro is getting weaker while the dollar is getting stronger.

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Fluctuations in exchange rates

2008-05-28T17:48:00.001-07:00

A market based exchange rate will change whenever the values of either of the two component currencies change. A currency will tend to become more valuable whenever demand for it is greater than the available supply. It will become less valuable whenever demand is less than available supply (this does not mean people no longer want money, it just means they prefer holding their wealth in some other form, possibly another currency).

Increased demand for a currency is due to either an increased transaction demand for money, or an increased speculative demand for money. The transaction demand for money is highly correlated to the country's level of business activity, gross domestic product (GDP), and employment levels. The more people there are unemployed, the less the public as a whole will spend on goods and services. Central banks typically have little difficulty adjusting the available money supply to accommodate changes in the demand for money due to business transactions.

The speculative demand for money is much harder for a central bank to accommodate but they try to do this by adjusting interest rates. An investor may choose to buy a currency if the return (that is the interest rate) is high enough. The higher a country's interest rates, the greater the demand for that currency. It has been argued that currency speculation can undermine real economic growth, in particular since large currency speculators may deliberately create downward pressure on a currency in order to force that central bank to sell their currency to keep it stable (once this happens, the speculator can buy the currency back from the bank at a lower price, close out their position, and thereby take a profit).

Asset market model

2008-04-08T17:47:00.001-07:00

The explosion in trading of financial assets (stocks and bonds) has reshaped the way analysts and traders look at currencies. Economic variables such as economic growth, inflation and productivity are no longer the only drivers of currency movements. The proportion of foreign exchange transactions stemming from cross border-trading of financial assets has dwarfed the extent of currency transactions generated from trading in goods and services.

The asset market approach views currencies as asset prices traded in an efficient financial market. Consequently, currencies are increasingly demonstrating a strong correlation with other markets, particularly equities.

Like the stock exchange, money can be made or lost on the foreign exchange market by investors and speculators buying and selling at the right times. Currencies can be traded at spot and foreign exchange options markets. The spot market represents current exchange rates, whereas options are derivatives of exchange rates

Balance of payments model

2008-04-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

This model holds that a foreign exchange rate must be at its equilibrium level - the rate which produces a stable current account balance. A nation with a trade deficit will experience reduction in its foreign exchange reserves which ultimately lowers (depreciates) the value of its currency. The cheaper currency renders the nation's goods (exports) more affordable in the global market place while making imports more expensive. After an intermediate period, imports are forced down and exports rise, thus stabilizing the trade balance and the currency towards equilibrium.

Like PPP, the balance of payments model focuses largely on tradable goods and services, ignoring the increasing role of global capital flows. In other words, money is not only chasing goods and services, but to a larger extent, financial assets such as stocks and bonds. Their flows go into the capital account item of the balance of payments, thus, balancing the deficit in the current account. The increase in capital flows has given rise to the asset market model.

Uncovered interest rate parity

2008-04-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

Uncovered interest rate parity (UIRP) states that an appreciation or depreciation of one currency against another currency might be neutralized by a change in the interest rate differential. If US interest rates exceed Japanese interest rates then the US dollar should depreciate against the Japanese yen by an amount that prevents arbitrage. The future exchange rate is reflected into the forward exchange rate stated today. In our example, the forward exchange rate of the dollar is said to be at a discount because it buys fewer Japanese yen in the forward rate than it does in the spot rate. The yen is said to be at a premium.

UIRP showed no proof of working after 1990s. Contrary to the theory, currencies with high interest rates characteristically appreciated rather than depreciated on the reward of the containment of inflation and a higher-yielding currency.

Bilateral vs effective exchange rate

2008-04-08T17:45:00.001-07:00

Bilateral exchange rate involves a currency pair, while effective exchange rate is weighted average of a basket of foreign currencies, and it can be viewed as an overall measure of the country's external competitiveness. A nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) is weighted with trade weights. a real effective exchange rate (REER) adjust NEER by appropriate foreign price level and deflates by the home country price level. Compared to NEER, a GDP weighted effective exchange rate might be more appropriate considering the global investment phenomenon.

Nominal and real exchange rates

2008-04-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

* The nominal exchange rate e is the price in domestic currency of one unit of a foreign currency.
* The real exchange rate (RER) is defined as RER = e \left(\frac{P^*}{P} \right), where P is the domestic price level and P * the foreign price level. P and P * must have the same arbitrary value in some chosen base year. Hence in the base year, RER = e.

The RER is only a theoretical ideal. In practice, there are many foreign currencies and price level values to take into consideration. Correspondingly, the model calculations become increasingly more complex. Furthermore, the model is based on purchasing power parity (PPP), which implies a constant RER. The empirical determination of a constant RER value could never be realised, due to limitations on data collection. PPP would imply that the RER is the rate at which an organization can trade goods and services of one economy (e.g. country) for those of another. For example, if the price of a good increases 10% in the UK, and the Japanese currency simultaneously appreciates 10% against the UK currency, then the price of the good remains constant for someone in Japan. The people in the UK, however, would still have to deal with the 10% increase in domestic prices. It is also worth mentioning that government-enacted tariffs can affect the actual rate of exchange, helping to reduce price pressures. PPP appears to hold only in the long term (3–5 years) when prices eventually correct towards parity.

More recent approaches in modelling the RER employ a set of macroeconomic variables, such as relative productivity and the real interest rate differential.

N R_i = (R R_i + 1)(Expected \ inflation + 1) - 1

Free or pegged

2008-04-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

If a currency is free-floating, its exchange rate is allowed to vary against that of other currencies and is determined by the market forces of supply and demand. Exchange rates for such currencies are likely to change almost constantly as quoted on financial markets, mainly by banks, around the world. A movable or adjustable peg system is a system of fixed exchange rates, but with a provision for the devaluation of a currency. For example, between 1994 and 2005, the Chinese yuan renminbi (RMB) was pegged to the United States dollar at RMB 8.2768 to $1. China was not the only country to do this; from the end of World War II until 1966, Western European countries all maintained fixed exchange rates with the US dollar based on the Bretton Woods system.

Quotations

2008-04-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

An exchange rate quotation is given by stating the number of units of "term currency" or "price currency" that can be bought in terms of 1 unit currency (also called base currency). For example, in a quotation that says the EURUSD exchange rate is 1.3 (1.3 USD per EUR), the term currency is USD and the base currency is EUR.

There is a market convention that determines which is the base currency and which is the term currency. In most parts of the world, the order is:
EUR - GBP - AUD - USD - *** (where *** is any other currency).
Thus if you are doing a conversion from EUR into AUD, EUR is the base currency, AUD is the term currency and the exchange rate tells you how many Australian dollars you would pay or receive for 1 euro. Cyprus and Malta which were quoted as the base to the USD and *** were recently removed from this list when they joined the euro. In some areas of Europe and in the non-professional market in the UK, EUR and GBP are reversed so that GBP is quoted as the base currency to the euro. In order to determine which is the base currency where both currencies are not listed (i.e. both are ***), market convention is to use the base currency which gives an exchange rate greater than 1.000. This avoids rounding issues and exchange rates being quoted to more than 4 decimal places. There are some exceptions to this rule e.g. the Japanese often quote their currency as the base to other currencies.

Quotes using a country's home currency as the price currency (e.g., EUR 1.00 = $1.45 in the US) are known as direct quotation or price quotation (from that country's perspective) ([1]) and are used by most countries.

Quotes using a country's home currency as the unit currency (e.g., £0.4762 = $1.00 in the US) are known as indirect quotation or quantity quotation and are used in British newspapers and are also common in Australia, New Zealand and the eurozone.

* direct quotation: 1 foreign currency unit = x home currency units
* indirect quotation: 1 home currency unit = x foreign currency units

Note that, using direct quotation, if the home currency is strengthening (i.e., appreciating, or becoming more valuable) then the exchange rate number decreases. Conversely if the foreign currency is strengthening, the exchange rate number increases and the home currency is depreciating.

When looking at a currency pair such as EURUSD, the first component (EUR in this case) will be called the base currency. The second is called the term currency. For example : EURUSD = 1.33866, means EUR is the base and USD the term, so 1 EUR = 1.33866 USD.

Currency pairs are often incorrectly quoted with a "/" (forward slash). In fact if the slash is inserted, the order of the currencies should be reversed. This gives the exchange rate. e.g. if EUR1 is worth USD1.35, euro is the base currency and dollar is the term currency so the exchange rate is stated EURUSD or USD/EUR. To get the exchange rate divide the USD amount by the euro amount e.g. 1.35/1.00 = 1.35

Market convention from the early 1980s to 2006 was that most currency pairs were quoted to 4 decimal places for spot transactions and up to 6 decimal places for forward outrights or swaps. (The fourth decimal place is usually referred to as a "pip.") An exception to this was exchange rates with a value of less than 1.000 which were usually quoted to 5 or 6 decimal places. Although there is no fixed rule, exchange rates with a value greater than around 20 were usually quoted to 3 decimal places and currencies with a value greater than 80 were quoted to 2 decimal places. Currencies over 5000 were usually quoted with no decimal places (e.g. the former Turkish Lira). e.g. (GBPOMR : 0.765432 - EURUSD : 1.3386 - GBPBEF : 58.234 - EURJPY : 165.29). In other words, quotes are given with 5 digits. Where rates are below 1, quotes frequently include 5 decimal places.

Exchange rate

2008-04-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

In finance, the exchange rates (also known as the foreign-exchange rate, forex rate or FX rate) between two currencies specifies how much one currency is worth in terms of the other. For example an exchange rate of 102 Japanese yen (JPY, ¥) to the United States dollar (USD, $) means that JPY 102 is worth the same as USD 1. The foreign exchange market is one of the largest markets in the world. By some estimates, about 2 trillion USD worth of currency changes hands every day.

The spot exchange rate refers to the current exchange rate. The forward exchange rate refers to an exchange rate that is quoted and traded today but for delivery and payment on a specific future date.

Valuing FX options: The Garman-Kohlhagen model

2008-03-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

As in the Black-Scholes model for stock options and the Black model for certain interest rate options, the value of a European option on an FX rate is typically calculated by assuming that the rate follows a log-normal process.

In 1983 Garman and Kohlhagen extended the Black-Scholes model to cope with the presence of two interest rates (one for each currency). Suppose that rd is the risk-free interest rate to expiry of the domestic currency and rf is the foreign currency risk-free interest rate (where domestic currency is the currency in which we obtain the value of the option; the formula also requires that FX rates - both strike and current spot be quoted in terms of "units of domestic currency per unit of foreign currency"). Then the domestic currency value of a call option into the foreign currency is

c = S_0\exp(-r_f T)\N(d_1) - K\exp(-r_d T)\N(d_2)

The value of a put option has value

p = K\exp(-r_d T)\N(-d_2) - S_0\exp(-r_f T)\N(-d_1)

where :

d_1 = \frac{\ln(S_0/K) + (r_d - r_f + \sigma^2/2)T}{\sigma\sqrt{T}}
d_2 = d_1 - \sigma\sqrt{T}

S0 is the current spot rate
K is the strike price
N is the cumulative normal distribution function
rd is domestic risk free rate
rf is foreign risk free rate
and σ is the volatility of the FX rate.

Hedging with FX options

2008-03-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

Corporations primarily use FX options to hedge uncertain future cash flows in a foreign currency. The general rule is to hedge certain foreign currency cash flows with forwards, and uncertain foreign cash flows with options.

Suppose a United Kingdom manufacturing firm is expecting to be paid US$100,000 for a piece of engineering equipment to be delivered in 90 days. If the GBP strengthen against the US$ over the next 90 days the UK firm will lose money, as it will receive less GBP when the US$100,000 is converted into GBP. However, if the GBP weaken against the US$, then the UK firm will gain additional money: the firm is exposed to FX risk. Assuming that the cash flow is certain, the firm can enter into a forward contract to deliver the US$100,000 in 90 days time, in exchange for GBP at the current forward rate. This forward contract is free, and, presuming the expected cash arrives, exactly matches the firm's exposure, perfectly hedging their FX risk.

If the cash flow is uncertain, the firm will likely want to use options: if the firm enters a forward FX contract and the expected USD cash is not received, then the forward, instead of hedging, exposes the firm to FX risk in the opposite direction.

Using options, the UK firm can purchase a GBP call/USD put option (the right to sell part or all of their expected income for pounds sterling at a predetermined rate), which will:

* protect the GBP value that the firm will receive in 90 day's time (presuming the cash is received)
* cost at most the option premium (unlike a forward, which can have unlimited losses)
* yield a profit if the expected cash is not received but FX rates move in its favor

Terms

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Example

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Foreign exchange option

2008-03-26T05:18:00.001-07:00

Spread

2008-03-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Cross Rates

2008-03-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

Majors

2008-03-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

Currency pair

2008-03-16T05:16:00.001-07:00

Fluctuations in exchange rates

2008-03-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Asset market model

2008-03-16T05:14:00.001-07:00

Balance of payments model

2008-03-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

Uncovered interest rate parity

2008-03-16T05:13:00.001-07:00

Bilateral vs effective exchange rate

2008-03-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

Nominal and real exchange rates

2008-03-16T05:12:00.001-07:00

Free or pegged

2008-03-16T05:12:00.000-07:00

Quotations

2008-03-16T05:10:00.001-07:00

An exchange rate quotation is given by stating the number of units of "term currency" or "price currency" that can be bought in terms of 1 unit currency (also called base currency). For example, in a quotation that says the EURUSD exchange rate is 1.3 (1.3 USD per EUR), the term currency is USD and the base currency is EUR.

There is a market convention that determines which is the base currency and which is the term currency. In most parts of the world, the order is:
EUR - GBP - AUD - USD - *** (where *** is any other currency).
Thus if you are doing a conversion from EUR into AUD, EUR is the base currency, AUD is the term currency and the exchange rate tells you how many Australian dollars you would pay or receive for 1 euro. Cyprus and Malta which were quoted as the base to the USD and *** were recently removed from this list when they joined the euro. In some areas of Europe and in the non-professional market in the UK, EUR and GBP are reversed so that GBP is quoted as the base currency to the euro. In order to determine which is the base currency where both currencies are not listed (i.e. both are ***), market convention is to use the base currency which gives an exchange rate greater than 1.000. This avoids rounding issues and exchange rates being quoted to more than 4 decimal places. There are some exceptions to this rule e.g. the Japanese often quote their currency as the base to other currencies.

Quotes using a country's home currency as the price currency (e.g., EUR 1.00 = $1.45 in the US) are known as direct quotation or price quotation (from that country's perspective) and are used by most countries.

Quotes using a country's home currency as the unit currency (e.g., £0.4762 = $1.00 in the US) are known as indirect quotation or quantity quotation and are used in British newspapers and are also common in Australia, New Zealand and the eurozone.

* direct quotation: 1 foreign currency unit = x home currency units
* indirect quotation: 1 home currency unit = x foreign currency units

Note that, using direct quotation, if the home currency is strengthening (i.e., appreciating, or becoming more valuable) then the exchange rate number decreases. Conversely if the foreign currency is strengthening, the exchange rate number increases and the home currency is depreciating.

When looking at a currency pair such as EURUSD, the first component (EUR in this case) will be called the base currency. The second is called the term currency. For example : EURUSD = 1.33866, means EUR is the base and USD the term, so 1 EUR = 1.33866 USD.

Currency pairs are often incorrectly quoted with a "/" (forward slash). In fact if the slash is inserted, the order of the currencies should be reversed. This gives the exchange rate. e.g. if EUR1 is worth USD1.35, euro is the base currency and dollar is the term currency so the exchange rate is stated EURUSD or USD/EUR. To get the exchange rate divide the USD amount by the euro amount e.g. 1.35/1.00 = 1.35

Market convention from the early 1980s to 2006 was that most currency pairs were quoted to 4 decimal places for spot transactions and up to 6 decimal places for forward outrights or swaps. (The fourth decimal place is usually referred to as a "pip.") An exception to this was exchange rates with a value of less than 1.000 which were usually quoted to 5 or 6 decimal places. Although there is no fixed rule, exchange rates with a value greater than around 20 were usually quoted to 3 decimal places and currencies with a value greater than 80 were quoted to 2 decimal places. Currencies over 5000 were usually quoted with no decimal places (e.g. the former Turkish Lira). e.g. (GBPOMR : 0.765432 - EURUSD : 1.3386 - GBPBEF : 58.234 - EURJPY : 165.29). In other words, quotes are given with 5 digits. Where rates are below 1, quotes frequently include 5 decimal places.

In 2006 Barclays Capital broke with convention by offering spot exchange rates with 5 or 6 decimal places. The contraction of spreads (the difference between the bid and offer rates) arguably necessitated finer pricing and gave the banks the ability to try and win transaction on multibank trading platforms where all banks may otherwise have been quoting the same price

Quotations

2008-03-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

An exchange rate quotation is given by stating the number of units of "term currency" or "price currency" that can be bought in terms of 1 unit currency (also called base currency). For example, in a quotation that says the EURUSD exchange rate is 1.3 (1.3 USD per EUR), the term currency is USD and the base currency is EUR.

There is a market convention that determines which is the base currency and which is the term currency. In most parts of the world, the order is:
EUR - GBP - AUD - USD - *** (where *** is any other currency).
Thus if you are doing a conversion from EUR into AUD, EUR is the base currency, AUD is the term currency and the exchange rate tells you how many Australian dollars you would pay or receive for 1 euro. Cyprus and Malta which were quoted as the base to the USD and *** were recently removed from this list when they joined the euro. In some areas of Europe and in the non-professional market in the UK, EUR and GBP are reversed so that GBP is quoted as the base currency to the euro. In order to determine which is the base currency where both currencies are not listed (i.e. both are ***), market convention is to use the base currency which gives an exchange rate greater than 1.000. This avoids rounding issues and exchange rates being quoted to more than 4 decimal places. There are some exceptions to this rule e.g. the Japanese often quote their currency as the base to other currencies.

Quotes using a country's home currency as the price currency (e.g., EUR 1.00 = $1.45 in the US) are known as direct quotation or price quotation (from that country's perspective) and are used by most countries.

Quotes using a country's home currency as the unit currency (e.g., £0.4762 = $1.00 in the US) are known as indirect quotation or quantity quotation and are used in British newspapers and are also common in Australia, New Zealand and the eurozone.

* direct quotation: 1 foreign currency unit = x home currency units
* indirect quotation: 1 home currency unit = x foreign currency units

Note that, using direct quotation, if the home currency is strengthening (i.e., appreciating, or becoming more valuable) then the exchange rate number decreases. Conversely if the foreign currency is strengthening, the exchange rate number increases and the home currency is depreciating.

When looking at a currency pair such as EURUSD, the first component (EUR in this case) will be called the base currency. The second is called the term currency. For example : EURUSD = 1.33866, means EUR is the base and USD the term, so 1 EUR = 1.33866 USD.

Currency pairs are often incorrectly quoted with a "/" (forward slash). In fact if the slash is inserted, the order of the currencies should be reversed. This gives the exchange rate. e.g. if EUR1 is worth USD1.35, euro is the base currency and dollar is the term currency so the exchange rate is stated EURUSD or USD/EUR. To get the exchange rate divide the USD amount by the euro amount e.g. 1.35/1.00 = 1.35

Market convention from the early 1980s to 2006 was that most currency pairs were quoted to 4 decimal places for spot transactions and up to 6 decimal places for forward outrights or swaps. (The fourth decimal place is usually referred to as a "pip.") An exception to this was exchange rates with a value of less than 1.000 which were usually quoted to 5 or 6 decimal places. Although there is no fixed rule, exchange rates with a value greater than around 20 were usually quoted to 3 decimal places and currencies with a value greater than 80 were quoted to 2 decimal places. Currencies over 5000 were usually quoted with no decimal places (e.g. the former Turkish Lira). e.g. (GBPOMR : 0.765432 - EURUSD : 1.3386 - GBPBEF : 58.234 - EURJPY : 165.29). In other words, quotes are given with 5 digits. Where rates are below 1, quotes frequently include 5 decimal places.

In 2006 Barclays Capital broke with convention by offering spot exchange rates with 5 or 6 decimal places. The contraction of spreads (the difference between the bid and offer rates) arguably necessitated finer pricing and gave the banks the ability to try and win transaction on multibank trading platforms where all banks may otherwise have been quoting the same price

Exchange rate

2008-03-15T20:04:00.000-07:00

Managed currency mortgages

2008-03-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

Managed currency mortgages can help to reduce risk exposure. A borrower can allow a specialist currency manager to manage their loan on their behalf (through a limited power of attorney), where the currency manager will switch the borrower's debt in and out of foreign currencies as they change in value against the base currency. A successful currency manager will move the borrower's debt into a currency which subsequently falls in value against the base currency. The manager can then switch the loan back into the base currency (or another weakening currency) at a better exchange rate, thereby reducing the value of the loan. A further benefit of this product is that the currency manager will try to select currencies with a lower interest rate than the base currency, and the borrower therefore can make substantial interest savings.

There are risks associated with these types of mortgages and the borrower must be prepared to accept an (often limited) increase in the value of their debt if there are adverse movements in the currency markets.

A successful currency manager may be able to use the currency markets to pay off a borrower's loan (through a combination of debt reduction and interest rate savings) within the normal lifetime of the loan, while the borrower pays on an interest only basis.

Foreign currency mortgage

2008-03-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

A foreign currency mortgage is a mortgage which is repayable in a currency other than the currency of the country in which the borrower is a resident. Foreign currency mortgages can be used to finance both personal mortgages and corporate mortgages.

The interest rate charged on a Foreign currency mortgage is based on the interest rates applicable to the currency in which the mortgage is denominated and not the interest rates applicable to the borrowers own domestic currency. Therefore, a Foreign currency mortgage should only be considered when the interest rate on the foreign currency is significantly lower than the borrower can obtain on a mortgage taken out in his or her domestic currency.

Borrowers should bear in mind that ultimately they have a liability to repay the mortgage in another currency and currency exchange rates constantly change. This means that if the borrowers domestic currency was to strengthen against the currency in which the mortgage is denominated, then it would cost the borrower less in domestic currency to fully repay the mortgage. Therefore, in effect, the borrower makes a capital saving.

Conversely, if the exchange rate of borrowers domestic currency were to weaken against the currency in which the mortgage is denominated, then it would cost the borrower more in their domestic currency to repay the mortgage. Therefore, the borrower makes a capital loss.

When the value of the mortgage is large, it may be possible to reduce or limit the risk in the exchange exposure by hedging

Hypothetical single "true" global currency

2008-03-14T21:38:00.001-07:00

An alternative definition of a world or global currency refers to a hypothetical single global currency, as the proposed Terra, produced and supported by a central bank which is used for all transactions around the world, regardless of the nationality of the entities (individuals, corporations, governments, or other organisations) involved in the transaction. No such official currency currently exists for a variety of reasons, political, economic, and cultural.

There are many different variations of the idea, including a possibility that it would be administered by a global central bank or that it would be on the gold standard . Supporters often point to the euro as an example of a supranational currency successfully implemented by a union of nations with disparate languages, cultures, and economies. Alternatively, digital gold currency can be viewed as an example of how global currency can be implemented without achieving national government consensus.

A limited alternative would be a world reserve currency issued by the International Monetary Fund, as an evolution of the existing Special Drawing Rights and used as reserve assets by all national and regional central banks.

19th - 20th centuries

2008-03-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Prior to and during most of the 1800s international trade was denominated in terms of currencies that represented weights of gold. Most national currencies at the time were in essence merely different ways of measuring gold weights (much as the yard and the metre both measure length and are related by a constant conversion factor). Hence some assert that gold was the world's first global currency. The emerging collapse of the international gold standard around the time of World War I had significant implications for global trade.

In the period following the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, exchange rates around the world were pegged against the United States dollar, which could be exchanged for a fixed amount of gold. This reinforced the dominance of the US dollar a global currency.

Since the collapse of the fixed exchange rate regime and the gold standard and the institution of floating exchange rates following the Smithsonian Agreement in 1971, currencies around the world have no longer been pegged against the United States dollar. However, as the United States remained the world's preeminent economic superpower, most international transactions continued to be conducted with the United States dollar, it has remained the de facto world currency.

Only two serious challengers to the status of the United States dollar as a world currency have arisen. During the 1980s, for a while, the Japanese yen became increasingly used as an international currency, but that usage diminished with the Japanese recession in the 1990s. More recently, the euro has competed with the United States dollar in usage in international finance.

Spanish Dollar: 17th-19th centuries

2008-03-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

In the 17th and 18th century, the use of silver Spanish dollars or "pieces of eight" spread from the Spanish territories in the Americas eastwards to Asia and westwards to Europe forming the first ever[citation needed] worldwide currency. Spain's political supremacy on the world stage, the importance of Spanish commercial routes across the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as the coin's quality and purity of silver, made it become internationally accepted for over two centuries. It was legal tender in Spain's Pacific territories of Philippines, Micronesia, Guam and the Caroline Islands and later in China and other Southeast Asian countries until the mid 19th century. In the Americas it was legal tender in all of South and Central America (except Brazil) as well as in the U.S. and Canada until the mid-19th century. In Europe the Spanish dollar was legal tender in the Iberian Peninsula, in most of Italy including: Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, as well as in the Franche-Comté (France), and in the Spanish Netherlands. It was also used in other European states including the Austrian Hapsburg territories.

The euro and the United States dollar

2008-03-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Since the mid-20th century, the de facto world currency has been the United States dollar. According to Robert Gilpin in Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order (2001): "Somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of international financial transactions are denominated in dollars. For decades the dollar has also been the world's principal reserve currency; in 1996, the dollar accounted for approximately two-thirds of the world's foreign exchange reserves" (255).

Many of the world's currencies are pegged against the dollar. Some countries, such as Ecuador, El Salvador, and Panama, have gone even further and eliminated their own currency in favor of the United States dollar. The dollar continues to dominate global currency reserves, with 64.6% held in dollars, as compared to 25.8% held in euros (see Reserve Currency).

Since 1999, the dollar's dominance has begun to be undermined by the euro, that represents a larger size economy, with the prospect of more countries adopting the euro as their national currency. The euro inherited the status of a major reserve currency from the German Mark (DM), and since then its contribution to official reserves has risen continually as banks seek to diversify their reserves and trade in the eurozone continues to expand.

Similar to the dollar, quite a few of the world's currencies are pegged against the euro. They are usually Eastern European currencies like the Estonian kroon and the Bulgarian lev, plus several west African currencies like the Cape Verdean escudo and the CFA franc. Other European countries, while not being EU members, have adopted the euro due to currency unions with member states, or by unilaterally superseding their own currencies: Andorra, Kosovo, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, and the Vatican City.

As of December 2006, the euro surpassed the dollar in the combined value of cash in circulation. The value of euro notes in circulation has risen to more than €610 billion, equivalent to US$800 billion at the exchange rates at the time. This results in the Euro being the currency with the highest combined value of cash in circulation in the world.

High Leverage

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The idea of margin (leverage) and floating loss is another important trading concept and is perhaps best understood using an example. Most retail Forex market makers permit 100:1 leverage, but also, crucially, require you to have a certain amount of money in your account to protect against a critical loss point. For example, if a $100,000 position is held in EURUSD on 100:1 leverage, the trader has to put up $1,000 to control the position. However, in the event of a declining value of your positions, Forex market makers, mindful of the fast nature of forex price swings and the amplifying effect of leverage, typically do not allow their traders to go negative and make up the difference at a later date. In order to make sure the trader does not lose more money than is held in the account, forex market makers typically employ automatic systems to close out positions when clients run out of margin (the amount of money in their account not tied to a position). If the trader has $2,000 in his account, and he is buying a $100,000 lot of EURUSD, he has $1,000 of his $2,000 tied up in margin, with $1,000 left to allow his position to fluctuate downward without being closed out.

Typically a trader's trading platform will show him three important numbers associated with his account: his balance, his equity, and his margin remaining. If trader X has two positions: $100,000 long (buy) in EURUSD, and $100,000 short (sell) in GBPUSD, and he has $10,000 in his account, his positions would look as follows: Because of the 100:1 leverage, it took him $1,000 to control each position. This means that he has used up $2,000 in his margin, out of a $10,000 account, and thus he has $8,000 of margin still available. With this margin, he can either take more positions or keep the margin relatively high to allow his current positions to be maintained in the event of downturns. If the client chooses to open a new position of $100,000, this will again take another $1,000 of his margin, leaving $7,000. He will have used up $3,000 in margin among the three positions. The other way margin will decrease is if the positions he currently has open lose money. If his 3 positions of $100,000 decrease by $5,000 in value (which is fairly common), he now has, of his original $7,000 in margin, only $2,000 left.

If you have a $10,000 account and only open one $100,000 position, this has committed only $1,000 of your money plus you must maintain $1,000 in margin. While this leaves $9,000 free in your account, it is possible to lose almost all of it if the speculation loses money.

Transaction Costs and Market Makers

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Market makers are well compensated for allowing retail clients to enter the forex market. They take part or all of the spread in all currency pairs traded. In a common example, EURUSD, the spread is typically 3 pips (3/100 of a percent). Thus prices are quoted with both bid and offer prices (e.g., Buy EURUSD 1.2000, Sell EURUSD 1.2003). That difference of 3 pips is the spread and can amount to a significant amount of money. Because the typical standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, those 3 pips on EURUSD translate to $30 paid by the client to the market maker. However, a pip is not always $10. A pip is 1/100th of a percent, and the currency pairs are always purchased by buying 100,000 of the quote currency, which is also known as the counter currency. For the pair EURUSD, the base currency is USD; thus, 1/100th of a percent on a pair with USD as the base currency will always have a pip of $10. If, on the other hand, your currency has Swiss Franc (CHF) as a base instead of USD, then 1/100th of a percent is now worth around $8, because you are buying 100,000 worth of Swiss Francs.

High Leverage

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Currency Pairs

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Currency prices can only fluctuate relative to another currency, so they are traded in pairs. Take two of the most common currency pairs, the EURUSD (the price for euros in US dollars) and the GBPUSD (the price for the British pound in US dollars).

Retail forex

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In financial markets, the retail forex (retail currency trading or retail FX) market is a subset of the larger foreign exchange market. This "market has long been plagued by swindlers preying on the gullible," according to The New York Times. It's commonly thought that about 90% of all retail FX traders lose money.

World currency

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In the foreign exchange market and international finance, a world currency or global currency refers to a currency in which the vast majority of international transactions take place and which serves as the world's primary reserve currency.

Speculation

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Controversy about currency speculators and their effect on currency devaluations and national economies recurs regularly. Nevertheless, many economists (e.g. Milton Friedman) have argued that speculators perform the important function of providing a market for hedgers and transferring risk from those people who don't wish to bear it, to those who do. Other economists (e.g. Joseph Stiglitz) however, may consider this argument to be based more on politics and a free market philosophy than on economics.

Large hedge funds and other well capitalized "position traders" are the main professional speculators.

Currency speculation is considered a highly suspect activity in many countries. While investment in traditional financial instruments like bonds or stocks often is considered to contribute positively to economic growth by providing capital, currency speculation does not; according to this view, it is simply gambling that often interferes with economic policy. For example, in 1992, currency speculation forced the Central Bank of Sweden to raise interest rates for a few days to 500% per annum, and later to devalue the krona. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is one well known proponent of this view. He blamed the devaluation of the Malaysian ringgit in 1997 on George Soros and other speculators.

Gregory Millman reports on an opposing view, comparing speculators to "vigilantes" who simply help "enforce" international agreements and anticipate the effects of basic economic "laws" in order to profit.

In this view, countries may develop unsustainable financial bubbles or otherwise mishandle their national economies, and forex speculators allegedly made the inevitable collapse happen sooner. A relatively quick collapse might even be preferable to continued economic mishandling. Mahathir Mohamad and other critics of speculation are viewed as trying to deflect the blame from themselves for having caused the unsustainable economic conditions. Given that Malaysia recovered quickly after imposing currency controls directly against IMF advice, this view is open to doubt.

Exchange Traded Fund

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Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are Open Ended investment companies that can be traded at any time throughout the course of the day. Typically, ETFs try to replicate a stock market index such as the S&P 500 (e.g. SPY), but recently they are now replicating investments in the currency markets with the ETF increasing in value when the US Dollar weakness versus a specific currency, such as the Euro. Certain of these funds track the price movements of world currencies versus the US Dollar, and increase in value directly counter to the US Dollar, allowing for speculation in the US Dollar for US and US Dollar denominated investors and speculators.

The use of high leverage

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By offering high leverage, the market maker encourages traders to trade extremely large positions. This increases the trading volume cleared by the market maker and increases his profits, but increases the risk that the trader will receive a margin call. While professional currency dealers (banks, hedge funds) never use more than 10:1 leverage, retail clients are generally offered leverage between 50:1 and 200:1.

A self-regulating body for the foreign exchange market, the National Futures Association, warns traders in a forex training presentation of the risk in trading currency. “As stated at the beginning of this program, off-exchange foreign currency trading carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all customers. The only funds that should ever be used to speculate in foreign currency trading, or any type of highly speculative investment, are funds that represent risk capital; in other words, funds you can afford to lose without affecting your financial situation.“

Why retail speculators should not be able to beat the market

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The foreign exchange market is a zero sum game in which there are many experienced well-capitalized professional traders (e.g. working for banks) who can devote their attention full time to trading. An inexperienced retail trader will have a significant information disadvantage compared to these traders.

Although it is possible for a few experts to successfully arbitrage the market for an unusually large return, this does not mean that a larger number could earn the same returns even given the same tools, techniques and data sources. This is because the arbitrages are essentially drawn from a pool of finite size; although information about how to capture arbitrages is a nonrival good, the arbritrages themselves are a rival good. (To draw an analogy, the total amount of buried treasure on an island is the same, regardless of how many treasure hunters have bought copies of a treasure map.)

Retail traders are - almost by definition - undercapitalized. Thus they are subject to the problem of Gambler's Ruin. In a fair game (one with no information advantages) between two players that continues until one trader goes bankrupt, the player with the lower amount of capital has a higher probability of going bankrupt first. Since the retail speculator is effectively playing against the market as a whole - which has nearly infinite capital - he will almost certainly go bankrupt.

The retail trader always pays the bid/ask spread which makes his odds of winning less than those of a fair game. Additional costs may include margin interest, or if a spot position is kept open for more than one day the trade may be "resettled" each day, each time costing the full bid/ask spread.

According to the Wall Street Journal (Currency Markets Draw Speculation, Fraud July 26, 2005) "Even people running the trading shops warn clients against trying to time the market. 'If 15% of day traders are profitable,' says Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, 'I'd be surprised.' "

Paul Belogour, the Managing Director of a Boston based retail forex trader, was quoted by the Financial Times as saying, "Trading foreign exchange is an excellent way for investors to find out how tough the markets really are. But I say to customers: if this is money you have worked hard for – that you cannot afford to lose – never, never invest in foreign exchange."

Forex scam

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A forex scam is any trading scheme used to defraud individual traders by convincing them that they can expect to gain a high profit by trading in the foreign exchange market. Currency trading "has become the fraud du jour," according to Michael Dunn of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. [1] But "the market has long been plagued by swindlers preying on the gullible," according to the New York Times [2]. "The average individual foreign-exchange-trading victim loses about $15,000, according to CFTC records" according to The Wall Street Journal. [3]. The North American Securities Administrators Association says that "off-exchange forex trading by retail investors is at best extremely risky, and at worst, outright fraud." [4]

“In a typical case, investors may be promised tens of thousands of dollars in profits in just a few weeks or months, with an initial investment of only $5,000. Often, the investor’s money is never actually placed in the market through a legitimate dealer, but simply diverted – stolen – for the personal benefit of the con artists.”[5]

The forex market is a zero-sum game[6] , meaning that whatever one trader gains, another loses, except that brokerage commissions and other transaction costs are subtracted from the results of all traders, technically making forex a "negative-sum" game.

These scams might include churning of customer accounts for the purpose of generating commissions, selling software that is supposed to guide the customer to large profits, [7] improperly managed "managed accounts", [8] false advertising, [9] Ponzi schemes and outright fraud. [4] [10] It also refers to any retail forex broker who indicates that trading foreign exchange is a low risk, high profit investment. [11]

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which loosely regulates the foreign exchange market in the United States, has noted an increase in the amount of unscrupulous activity in the non-bank foreign exchange industry.[12]

An official of the National Futures Association was quoted [13] as saying, "Retail forex trading has increased dramatically over the past few years. Unfortunately, the amount of forex fraud has also increased dramatically..." Between 2001 and 2006 the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has prosecuted more than 80 cases involving the defrauding of more than 23,000 customers who lost $350 million. From 2001 to 2007, about 26,000 people lost $460 million in forex frauds. [1] CNN quoted Godfried De Vidts, President of the Financial Markets Association, a European body, as saying, "Banks have a duty to protect their customers and they should make sure customers understand what they are doing. Now if people go online, on non-bank portals, how is this control being done?"

Forex

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The foreign exchange (currency or forex or FX) market exists wherever one Currency is traded for another. It is by far the largest financial market in the world, and includes trading between large banks, Central banks, currency Speculators, Multinational corporations, governments, and other Financial market and institutions. The average daily trade in the global forex and related markets currently is over US$ 3 trillion.Retail Traders (individuals) are a small fraction of this market and may only participate indirectly through brokers or banks, and are subject to forex scams

Financial instruments

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Spot

A spot transaction is a two-day delivery transaction, as opposed to the futures contracts, which are usually three months. This trade represents a “direct exchange” between two currencies, has the shortest time frame, involves cash rather than a contract; and interest is not included in the agreed-upon transaction. The data for this study come from the spot market. Spot has the largest share by volume in FX transactions among all instruments.

Forward

One way to deal with the Forex risk is to engage in a forward transaction. In this transaction, money does not actually change hands until some agreed upon future date. A buyer and seller agree on an exchange rate for any date in the future, and the transaction occurs on that date, regardless of what the market rates are then. The duration of the trade can be a few days, months or years.

Future

Main article: Currency future

Foreign currency futures are forward transactions with standard contract sizes and maturity dates — for example, 500,000 British pounds for next November at an agreed rate. Futures are standardized and are usually traded on an exchange created for this purpose. The average contract length is roughly 3 months. Futures contracts are usually inclusive of any interest amounts.

Swap

Main article: Forex swap

The most common type of forward transaction is the currency swap. In a swap, two parties exchange currencies for a certain length of time and agree to reverse the transaction at a later date. These are not standardized contracts and are not traded through an exchange.

Option

Main article: Foreign exchange option

A foreign exchange option (commonly shortened to just FX option) is a derivative where the owner has the right but not the obligation to exchange money denominated in one currency into another currency at a pre-agreed exchange rate on a specified date. The FX options market is the deepest, largest and most liquid market for options of any kind in the world.

Algorithmic trading in forex

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Electronic trading is growing in the FX market, and algorithmic trading is becoming much more common. According to financial consultancy Celent estimates, by 2008 up to 25% of all trades by volume will be executed using algorithm, up from about 18% in 2005.

Market psychology

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Market psychology and trader perceptions influence the foreign exchange market in a variety of ways:

Flights to quality: Unsettling international events can lead to a "flight to quality," with investors seeking a "safe haven". There will be a greater demand, thus a higher price, for currencies perceived as stronger over their relatively weaker counterparts.

Long-term trends: Currency markets often move in visible long-term trends. Although currencies do not have an annual growing season like physical commodities, business cycles do make themselves felt. Cycle analysis looks at longer-term price trends that may rise from economic or political trends. [7]

"Buy the rumor, sell the fact:" This market truism can apply to many currency situations. It is the tendency for the price of a currency to reflect the impact of a particular action before it occurs and, when the anticipated event comes to pass, react in exactly the opposite direction. This may also be referred to as a market being "oversold" or "overbought".[8] To buy the rumor or sell the fact can also be an example of the cognitive bias known as anchoring, when investors focus too much on the relevance of outside events to currency prices.

Economic numbers: While economic numbers can certainly reflect economic policy, some reports and numbers take on a talisman-like effect: the number itself becomes important to market psychology and may have an immediate impact on short-term market moves. "What to watch" can change over time. In recent years, for example, money supply, employment, trade balance figures and inflation numbers have all taken turns in the spotlight.

Technical trading considerations: As in other markets, the accumulated price movements in a currency pair such as EUR/USD can form apparent patterns that traders may attempt to use. Many traders study price charts in order to identify such patterns.

Political conditions

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Internal, regional, and international political conditions and events can have a profound effect on currency markets.

For instance, political upheaval and instability can have a negative impact on a nation's economy. The rise of a political faction that is perceived to be fiscally responsible can have the opposite effect. Also, events in one country in a region may spur positive or negative interest in a neighboring country and, in the process, affect its currency.

Economic factors

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These include economic policy, disseminated by government agencies and central banks, economic conditions, generally revealed through economic reports, and other economic indicators.

Economic policy comprises government fiscal policy (budget/spending practices) and monetary policy (the means by which a government's central bank influences the supply and "cost" of money, which is reflected by the level of interest rates).

Economic conditions include:

Government budget deficits or surpluses: The market usually reacts negatively to widening government budget deficits, and positively to narrowing budget deficits. The impact is reflected in the value of a country's currency.

Balance of trade levels and trends: The trade flow between countries illustrates the demand for goods and services, which in turn indicates demand for a country's currency to conduct trade. Surpluses and deficits in trade of goods and services reflect the competitiveness of a nation's economy. For example, trade deficits may have a negative impact on a nation's currency.

Inflation levels and trends: Typically, a currency will lose value if there is a high level of inflation in the country or if inflation levels are perceived to be rising. This is because inflation erodes purchasing power, thus demand, for that particular currency. However, a currency may sometimes strengthen when inflation rises because of expectations that the central bank will raise short-term interest rates to combat rising inflation.

Economic growth and health: Reports such as gross domestic product (GDP), employment levels, retail sales, capacity utilization and others, detail the levels of a country's economic growth and health. Generally, the more healthy and robust a country's economy, the better its currency will perform, and the more demand for it there will be.

Factors affecting currency trading

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Although exchange rates are affected by many factors, in the end, currency prices are a result of supply and demand forces. The world's currency markets can be viewed as a huge melting pot: in a large and ever-changing mix of current events, supply and demand factors are constantly shifting, and the price of one currency in relation to another shifts accordingly. No other market encompasses (and distills) as much of what is going on in the world at any given time as foreign exchange.

Supply and demand for any given currency, and thus its value, are not influenced by any single element, but rather by several. These elements generally fall into three categories: economic factors, political conditions and market psychology.

Trading characteristics

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There is no unified or centrally cleared market for the majority of FX trades, and there is very little cross-border regulation. Due to the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of currency markets, there are rather a number of interconnected marketplaces, where different currency instruments are traded. This implies that there is not a single dollar rate but rather a number of different rates (prices), depending on what bank or market maker is trading. In practice the rates are often very close, otherwise they could be exploited by arbitrageurs instantaneously. A joint venture of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Reuters, called FxMarketSpace opened in 2007 and aspires to the role of a central market clearing mechanism.

The main trading centers are in London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, but banks throughout the world participate. Currency trading happens continuously throughout the day; as the Asian trading session ends, the European session begins, followed by the North American session and then back to the Asian session, excluding weekends.

There is little or no 'inside information' in the foreign exchange markets. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as by expectations of changes in monetary flows caused by changes in GDP growth, inflation, interest rates, budget and trade deficits or surpluses, large cross-border M&A deals and other macroeconomic conditions. Major news is released publicly, often on scheduled dates, so many people have access to the same news at the same time. However, the large banks have an important advantage; they can see their customers' order flow.

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 is expressed (called base currency). For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.3045 dollar. Out of convention, the first currency in the pair, the base currency, was the stronger currency at the creation of the pair. The second currency, counter currency, was the weaker currency at the creation of the pair.

The factors affecting XXX will affect both XXX/YYY and XXX/ZZZ. This causes positive currency correlation between XXX/YYY and XXX/ZZZ.

On the spot market, according to the BIS study, the most heavily traded products were:

* EUR/USD: 28 %
* USD/JPY: 18 %
* GBP/USD (also called sterling or cable): 14 %

and the US currency was involved in 88.7% of transactions, followed by the euro (37.2%), the yen (20.3%), and the sterling (16.9%) (see table). Note that volume percentages should add up to 200%: 100% for all the sellers and 100% for all the buyers.

Although trading in the euro has grown considerably since the currency's creation in January 1999, the foreign exchange market is thus far still largely dollar-centered. For instance, trading the euro versus a non-European currency ZZZ will usually involve two trades: EUR/USD and USD/ZZZ. The exception to this is EUR/JPY, which is an established traded currency pair in the interbank spot market.

Retail forex brokers

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There are two types of retail broker: brokers offering speculative trading and brokers offering physical delivery i.e. the bought currency is delivered to a bank account.

Retail forex brokers or market makers handle a minute fraction of the total volume of the foreign exchange market. According to CNN, one retail broker estimates retail volume at $25–50 billion daily, which is about 2% of the whole market. Retail traders (individuals) are a small fraction of this market and may only participate indirectly through brokers or banks, and might be subject to forex scams

Hedge funds

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Hedge funds have gained a reputation for aggressive currency speculation since 1996. They control billions of dollars of equity and may borrow billions more, and thus may overwhelm intervention by central banks to support almost any currency, if the economic fundamentals are in the hedge funds' favor.

Investment management firms

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Investment management firms (who typically manage large accounts on behalf of customers such as pension funds and endowments) use the foreign exchange market to facilitate transactions in foreign securities. For example, an investment manager with an international equity portfolio will need to buy and sell foreign currencies in the spot market in order to pay for purchases of foreign equities. Since the forex transactions are secondary to the actual investment decision, they are not seen as speculative or aimed at profit-maximization.

Some investment management firms also have more speculative specialist currency overlay operations, which manage clients' currency exposures with the aim of generating profits as well as limiting risk. Whilst the number of this type of specialist firms is quite small, many have a large value of assets under management (AUM), and hence can generate large trades.

Central banks

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National central banks play an important role in the foreign exchange markets. They try to control the money supply, inflation, and/or interest rates and often have official or unofficial target rates for their currencies. They can use their often substantial foreign exchange reserves to stabilize the market. Milton Friedman argued that the best stabilization strategy would be for central banks to buy when the exchange rate is too low, and to sell when the rate is too high — that is, to trade for a profit based on their more precise information. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of central bank "stabilizing speculation" is doubtful because central banks do not go bankrupt if they make large losses, like other traders would, and there is no convincing evidence that they do make a profit trading.

The mere expectation or rumor of central bank intervention might be enough to stabilize a currency, but aggressive intervention might be used several times each year in countries with a dirty float currency regime. Central banks do not always achieve their objectives. The combined resources of the market can easily overwhelm any central bank. Several scenarios of this nature were seen in the 1992–93 ERM collapse, and in more recent times in Southeast Asia.

Commercial companies

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An important part of this market comes from the financial activities of companies seeking foreign exchange to pay for goods or services. Commercial companies often trade fairly small amounts compared to those of banks or speculators, and their trades often have little short term impact on market rates. Nevertheless, trade flows are an important factor in the long-term direction of a currency's exchange rate. Some multinational companies can have an unpredictable impact when very large positions are covered due to exposures that are not widely known by other market participants.

Banks

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The interbank market caters for both the majority of commercial turnover and large amounts of speculative trading every day. A large bank may trade billions of dollars daily. Some of this trading is undertaken on behalf of customers, but much is conducted by proprietary desks, trading for the bank's own account.

Until recently, foreign exchange brokers did large amounts of business, facilitating interbank trading and matching anonymous counterparts for small fees. Today, however, much of this business has moved on to more efficient electronic systems. The broker squawk box lets traders listen in on ongoing interbank trading and is heard in most trading rooms, but turnover is noticeably smaller than just a few years ago.

Market participants

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Unlike a stock market, where all participants have access to the same prices, the forex market is divided into levels of access. At the top is the inter-bank market, which is made up of the largest investment banking firms. Within the inter-bank market, spreads, which are the difference between the bid and ask prices, are razor sharp and usually unavailable, and not known to players outside the inner circle. As you descend the levels of access, the difference between the bid and ask prices widens (from 0-1 pip to 1-2 pips for some currencies such as the EUR). This is due to volume. If a trader can guarantee large numbers of transactions for large amounts, they can demand a smaller difference between the bid and ask price, which is referred to as a better spread. The levels of access that make up the forex market are determined by the size of the “line” (the amount of money with which they are trading). The top-tier inter-bank market accounts for 53% of all transactions. After that there are usually smaller investment banks, followed by large multi-national corporations (which need to hedge risk and pay employees in different countries), large hedge funds, and even some of the retail forex market makers. According to Galati and Melvin, “Pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and other institutional investors have played an increasingly important role in financial markets in general, and in FX markets in particular, since the early 2000s.” (2004) In addition, he notes, “Hedge funds have grown markedly over the 2001–2004 period in terms of both number and overall size” Central banks also participate in the forex market to align currencies to their economic needs.

Market size and liquidity

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The foreign exchange market is unique because of

* its trading volumes,
* the extreme liquidity of the market,
* the large number of, and variety of, traders in the market,
* its geographical dispersion,
* its long trading hours: 24 hours a day (except on weekends),
* the variety of factors that affect exchange rates.
* the low margins of profit compared with other markets of fixed income (but profits can be high due to very large trading volumes)

Foreign exchange market turnover, 1988 - 2007, measured in billions of USD.
Foreign exchange market turnover, 1988 - 2007, measured in billions of USD.

As such, it has been referred to as the market closest to the ideal perfect competition, notwithstanding authorized market manipulation by central banks. According to the BIS,[1] average daily turnover in traditional foreign exchange markets is estimated at $3.21 trillion. Daily averages in April for different years, in billions of US dollars, are presented on the chart below:

This $3.21 trillion in global foreign exchange market "traditional" turnover was broken down as follows:

* $1,005 billion in spot transactions
* $362 billion in outright forwards
* $1,714 billion in forex swaps
* $129 billion estimated gaps in reporting

In addition to "traditional" turnover, $2.1 trillion was traded in derivatives.

Exchange-traded forex futures contracts were introduced in 1972 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and are actively traded relative to most other futures contracts. Forex futures volume has grown rapidly in recent years, and accounts for about 7% of the total foreign exchange market volume, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe (5/5/06, p. 20).

Average daily global turnover in traditional foreign exchange market transactions totaled $2.7 trillion in April 2006 according to IFSL estimates based on semi-annual London, New York, Tokyo and Singapore Foreign Exchange Committee data. Overall turnover, including non-traditional foreign exchange derivatives and products traded on exchanges, averaged around $2.9 trillion a day. This was more than ten times the size of the combined daily turnover on all the world’s equity markets. Foreign exchange trading increased by 38% between April 2005 and April 2006 and has more than doubled since 2001. This is largely due to the growing importance of foreign exchange as an asset class and an increase in fund management assets, particularly of hedge funds and pension funds. The diverse selection of execution venues such as internet trading platforms has also made it easier for retail traders to trade in the foreign exchange market. [2]

Because foreign exchange is an OTC market where brokers/dealers negotiate directly with one another, there is no central exchange or clearing house. The biggest geographic trading centre is the UK, primarily London, which according to IFSL estimates has increased its share of global turnover in traditional transactions from 31.3% in April 2004 to 32.4% in April 2006. RPP

The ten most active traders account for almost 73% of trading volume, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe, (2/9/06 p. 20). These large international banks continually provide the market with both bid (buy) and ask (sell) prices. The bid/ask spread is the difference between the price at which a bank or market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") and the price at which a market-maker will buy ("bid") from a wholesale customer. This spread is minimal for actively traded pairs of currencies, usually 0–3 pips. For example, the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.2200/1.2203 on a retail broker. Minimum trading size for most deals is usually 100,000 units of currency, which is a standard "lot".

These spreads might not apply to retail customers at banks, which will routinely mark up the difference to say 1.2100 / 1.2300 for transfers, or say 1.2000 / 1.2400 for banknotes or travelers' checks. Spot prices at market makers vary, but on EUR/USD are usually no more than 3 pips wide (i.e. 0.0003). Competition is greatly increased with larger transactions, and pip spreads shrink on the major pairs to as little as 1 to 2 pips.