Although most people outside of the financial world consider the New York Stock exchange to be the pinnacle of financial trading, it is the Foreign Exchange Market that is the true leader. The Forex Market, as this currency exchange is known, has a volume of around 1.5 trillion United States dollars daily. This staggering amount is over one hundred times larger than the volume of the NYSE.

 

The market is world wide. It is what is known as an “interbank” market where trades are conducted OTC (over the counter), which means they take place directly between the parties involved in the trade rather than through a central exchange. The main centers for the Forex market are located in Sydney, New York, Tokyo, Frankfurt and London. This allows the market to operate virtually 24 hours a day.
Put simply, the Forex market is based on trading the currency of one country for the currency of another country. The ratio of the value of one currency to the other rises and falls, and this ratio is what fuels the market. The trades consist of the simultaneous buying of one currency, for example, United States Dollars (USD), and the selling of another, i.e. The European Euro (EUR).

The most important market in Forex trading is called the “spot market” because trades are executed at once, or “on the spot”. There are other elements of Forex trading, such as futures trading, and Forward Outrights, which are slightly more complex than spot trading.