Introduction To Forex Trading

The 1971 abandonment of the Bretton Woods Accord and the subsequent unwinding of the regime of universal fixed exchange rates gave rise to the foreign exchange market as we know it today.

Forex refers to the foreign exchange market, where brokerage firms and banks are connected over an electronic network that allows them to convert the currencies of countries around the globe. The forex market is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world. The daily dollar volume of currencies traded in the currency market exceeds $1.4 trillion, many times larger than the combined volume of all U.S. equity markets.

While the foreign exchange market is often seen to be dominated by government central banks and commercial and investment banks, trading on the currency exchanges has become increasingly accessible to private investors through technological innovations such as the internet. The most commonly traded currencies are the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar. The FX market runs 24-hour hours a day, 5 days a week with continuous access to global dealers. Trading is not centralized on an exchange, as with the stock and futures markets. Transactions are conducted between two counterparts over the telephone or via an electronic network.

Foreign Exchange is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. Currencies are traded in pairs, for example Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY). For example, you would execute a trade when you expect the currency you are buying to increase relative to the one you are selling. If the currency you are buying increases in value, you must sell the other currency to close the position and take a profit. The first currency in the pair is called the base currency and the second is called the counter or quote currency. Usually the US currency is the base currency and quotes are given in $1 USD per counter currency, e.g. USD/JPY. The exceptions are the British Pound, the Euro and the Australian Dollar.