Forex (or FX) market is the world’s largest financial market, with daily turnover of more than $ 1 trillion.
Forex market is officially distributed and therefore a major change like that for stocks or futures together. Prices are set by agreement between buyers and sellers. This means that foreign prices may vary between different points at a certain time – there is no official quoted price . In fact, if prices go guides, traders called arbitrageurs at step gain mismatches in the short term, it means that prices tend to be about the same, no matter where they are geographic.
Major currencies are traded in foreign currency markets the euro, U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar. Other currencies are available, but are not traded often means that the cost of trading in them is much higher, so FX traders usually focus on the most popular currencies.
Forex transactions are always between two currencies, which are called currency pairs. For example, a common pair is EUR / USD. When someone buys it, it means they are buying Euros and selling U.S. dollars.
Prices are by differences in supply and demand in the forex market. If you are in high demand to buy currency, but low supply of currency (holders willing to sell), then prices will move up. If my husband wants to sell more currency than buyers want to buy, so prices go down. Supply and demand are influenced by expectations of currency traders – that is, according to which the currency price will move in the future.
FX contract sizes
Standard contract size for ordinary traders FX is USD $ 100,000. This is one of many, he minimum size normally traded. You set up a margin, usually $ 1,000 – $ 2,000, depending on your broker.
Some brokers now offer mini FX contracts. These are the tenth regular size FX contracts, representing $ 10,000. The gain is relatively small. Mini contracts trading costs high, as there is more work to do for various broker-market contracts. However sorts of contracts are a great opportunity to start trading without risking much money, and can help new traders get to know the market before moving to full-sized contracts.
Forex market participants
To understand the forex market, you should understand the following market participants in their motives;
Retail Banks
Reserve banks
Hedge Funds
Individual traders
Brokers
1. Retail Banks
Banks are a large part of total turnover. They use the foreign exchange market to buy and sell currencies in the foreign exchange needed for their customers, fence or protect against market movements on behalf of their customers (for example, when an importer is recommended to protect against adverse currency movements), as well as for trading purposes.
2. Reserve banks
These are state-owned enterprises which is responsible for managing the economy of their countries by setting interest rates and they can also take positions on foreign currency in an attempt to regulate exchange rates or in part. Examples include the Bank of England, Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Australia.
For example, the Bank of Japan might enter the market to sell and buy Japanese Yen Euro if they think the Japanese yen are priced too high relative to the euro.
Reserve banks are usually active in their own currency. They can make huge transactions quickly can cause significant short-term market movements. Usually the actions of the banks reserve can be seen when there are sudden spikes or dips in currency.
In addition, banks often keep to the release of key economic statistics. This information is eagerly awaited by market participants results in an immediate price movements if different statistics show the consensus.
3. Hedge Funds
Hedge funds are professional investment firms typically manage money on behalf of high net worth investors. They may invest in a wide range of financial instruments, including foreign currencies. Their motivation is speculative profit for their investors, as they make their money percentage of the profits earned.
4. Individual traders
Individual traders are increasingly active in foreign exchange markets. It is driven by ready access to market through the Internet and the opportunities available to earn significant profits relatively low capital investment.
Individual traders are often unsuccessful. In fact, approximately 90% of individual traders to lose money during their time in foreign currency markets. Individual traders do not usually systems, do not manage risk well.
In addition, individual traders face higher transaction costs than professional traders do not have direct access to the market need to use a broker. Also, sole traders can not watch the market all the time, as they usually have other committments such as work or family life.
These factors are a disadvantage, but the advantage is that a single trader may choose to participate in any given point in time. Professional traders are committed enough to trade all the time by nature of their work which means they can not be selective as to transactions that they enter.
5. Brokers
Brokers provide access to the forex market to individual traders. Usually banks and hedge funds have direct access to the market as part of the market.
Broker will provide guard services account, make transactions typically provides some software to place orders allow you to look at the prices and the current charts.
Brokers earn their profit by charging a spread. This is the difference between buying and selling price. For example to buy EUR / USD, the price may be quoted in 15/19, which means the broker makes the spread of 4 basis points per trade. Trading is also buying or selling foreign currency position.

