Saturday, January 16, 2010

what is forex trading ?

What is Forex Trading ?
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 markets and institutions.

The average daily trade in the global forex markets currently exceeds US$ 2 trillion. Retail traders (individuals) are a small fraction of this market and may only participate indirectly through brokers or banks

What is traded in Forex Trading ?
The answer is Currency. Currencies are always traded in pairs, such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD, etc. Why ? Because when you trade forex, you are exchanging 1 currency to another currency simultaneously (buying 1 currency and selling the other at the same instance). You will gain from differences of traded currency price rates.

When is the time to trade forex ?
Forex can be traded 24 hours a day and 5 days a week. The main trading centers are in London, New York, Tokyo, and Singapore, but banks throughout the world participate. The biggest foreign exchange trading centre is London, followed by New York and Tokyo. Currency trading happens continuously throughout the day; as the Asian trading session ends, the European session begins, followed by the US session and then back to the Asian session, excluding weekends

The following approximate market schedule is based on New York local time: japan forex markets open at 19:00 followed by singapore and hong kong that open at 21:00. European markets open in frankfurt at 2:00, while london opens at 3:00. New york forex markets open at 8:00. European markets close at 12:00 and australian markets start again at 18:00.

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