Forex is short for foreign exchange – the transaction of changing one currency into another currency. This process can be performed for a variety of reasons including commercial, tourism and to enable international trade.
Forex is traded on the forex market, which is open to buy and sell currencies 24 hours a day, five days a week and is used by banks, businesses, investment firms, hedge funds and retail traders.
The forex market is by far the largest and most liquid financial market in the world, with an estimated average global daily turnover of more than US$6.5 trillion — which has risen from $5 trillion just a few years ago.
One critical feature of the forex market is that there is no central marketplace or exchange in a central location, as all trading is done electronically via computer networks. This is known as an over the counter (OTC) market
This ‘currency pair’ is made up of a base currency and a quote currency, whereby you sell one to purchase another. The price for a pair is how much of the quote currency it costs to buy one unit of the base currency. You can make a profit by correctly forecasting the price move of a currency pair.
FXTM offers hundreds of combinations of currency pairs to trade including the majors which are the most popular traded pairs in the forex market. These include the Euro against the US Dollar, the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen and the British Pound against the US Dollar.
The diagram on the left looks at the most traded currency pair (EUR/USD) in the forex market and breaks down its essential components
For most currency pairs, a pip is the fourth decimal place, the main exception being the Japanese Yen where a pip is the second decimal place.
On the forex market, trades in currencies are often worth millions, so small bid-ask price differences (i.e. several pips) can soon add up to a significant profit. Of course, such large trading volumes mean a small spread can also equate to significant losses.
Trading forex is risky, so always trade carefully and implement risk management tools and techniques 