What is Forex?

If I told you there was a highly liquid market much larger than the New York Stock Exchange, where you have the potential to double your money in hours -- with limited risk -- your initial reaction might be utter disbelief, or at least a large dose of skepticism. Doubt no more, because it's true. Forex trading and Forex has exploded full force onto the trading scene, and it offers traders some unique characteristics not found elsewhere. Don't pre-judge this market; ignore it at your own risk. Many traders have expanded their trading to include Forex in addition to stocks and/or futures, and many of you have asked us for information and how to get involved. So here it is -- a quick overview of the Forex market.What Is Forex and Forex trading?Forex is an acronym for "foreign exchange," and involves trading pairs of currencies, i.e., buying one currency and selling the other in a single transaction. For example, USD/JPY is buy US dollar/sell Japanese yen. In this case, you expect the dollar to appreciate versus the yen, the yen to depreciate against the dollar, or both. The latter situation, of course, is ideal.What Currencies Are Traded?The foreign exchange market is gigantic: over $1.5 trillion in daily Forex trades, with national banks such as the Bank of Japan, money center banks such as Citicorp and large pension plans and hedge funds being the major players. It's mainly the larger currencies that are involved, together with the US dollar.While there are several currency pairs that offer good opportunities, these four are the most widely traded: Euro/US dollar (EUR/USD), US dollar/Swiss franc (USD/CHF), US Dollar/Japanese yen (USD/JPY), British pound/US dollar (GBP/USD).How Do You Calculate Price Movement?Price movement for any foreign currency pair is calculated in "PIPs” (Price Interest Points) which are 1/10 of 1% of the contract size. For example, for a large account, a PIP is $10. For a mini account, one PIP will be $1.00. For example, on a mini account, let's take a quote of 1.2386 EUR/USD. If price moves to 1.2387, that's one PIP, or $1.00. 100 PIPs equals 1 basis point, or "BIP," so a move from 1.2386 to 1.2486 = one BIP, or $100. Not bad for $50 initial margin.You Risk Is Limited -- Here's HowUnlike stocks or futures, stops on Forex are guaranteed to be filled, even on gaps, and your account cannot go below your initial margin deposit. You can never lose more than you put down, and you will never receive a maintenance call. To show how this works, let's look at the following trade-gone-wrong: A short in the Swiss Franc at 1.2676 with a stop loss at 1.2710, risking a total of 35 pips. Then the unthinkable happens: a big gaping hole in the chart appears over the weekend. If something like this happened in the equity markets, your stop is meaningless and you would cover at the opening price Monday morning, locking in a huge loss. With FX, your stop is honored, yielding a more manageable 35-pip loss. Note that a stop must be in place to receive this protection!

London Forex

The foreign exchange market (Currency, Forex, or FX) market is where currency trading takes place. It is where banks and other official institutions facilitate the buying and selling of foreign currencies. [1]FX transactions typically involve one party purchasing a quantity of one currency in exchange for paying a quantity of another. The foreign exchange market that we see today started evolving during the 1970s when worldover countries gradually switched to floating exchange rate from their erstwhile exchange rate regime, which remained fixed as per the Bretton Woods system till 1971.Today, the FX market is one of the largest and most liquid financial markets in the world, and includes trading between large banks, central banks, currency speculators, corporations, governments, and other institutions. The average daily volume in the global foreign exchange and related markets is continuously growing. Traditional daily turnover was reported to be over 3.2 trillion in April 2007 by the Bank for International Settlements.[2] Since then, the market has continued to grow. According to Euromoney's annual FX Poll, volumes grew a further 41% between 2007 and 2008.[3]The purpose of FX market is to facilitate trade and investment. The need for a foreign exchange market arises because of the presence of multifarious international currencies such as US Dollar, Pound Sterling, etc., and the need for trading in such currencies.

France Forex

French RevolutionThe decimal "franc" was established as the national currency by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit (1 franc = 10 decimes = 100 centimes) of 4.5 g of fine silver. This was slightly less than the livre of 4.505 g but the franc was set in 1796 at 1.0125 livres (1 livre, 3 deniers), reflecting in part the past minting of sub-standard coins.However the circulation of this metallic currency declined during the Republic that exchanged the old gold and silver reserves (needed to finance wars and try to solve the shortage of food supplies by importing them) against printed assignats, initially designed as bonds based on the value of the confiscated goods of churches, but later declared as legal tendercurrency. Too many assignats were put in circulation (by largely overevaluating the value of the "national properties"), and the silver franc rarefied to pay foreign providers, and the unpaid governmental national debt caused decreasing trust in this secondary unit, shortage of silver supplies for producing metallized francs, hyperinflation, even more food riots in the population, and severe political instability and termination of the First French Republic (the political fall of the French Convention, the economic failure of the Directoire that replaced it, then a coup d'état that lead to the Consulate during which only the first Consul progressively gained all the legislative powers against the other unstable and discredited consultative or legislative institutions).

Denmark Forex

Forex is a Swedish financial services company. The company was started in 1927 as a currency exchange service for travellers, at the Central Station in Stockholm. The owner of Gyllenspet's Barber Shop, according to the legend, discovered that most of his customers were tourists in need of currency for their trips. So he started keeping the major currencies on hand.The company was subsequently acquired by Statens Järnvägar, the Swedish State Railways, which expanded the operations until it was sold off to one of the managers, Rolf Friberg, in 1965. The company was the only one apart from the banks that was licensed to conduct currency exchange in Sweden.The company, which is still wholly owned by the Friberg family, has expanded into Denmark and Finland and has over 50 shops, usually located at train stations or airports. The decrease in the business brought on by introduction of the Euro has made the company look for alternative sources of revenue, like applying for a banking license and attempting to move into more regular transaction services, earlier handled by the Swedish postal service.