Forex stands for the Foreign Exchange market, also abbreviated by "FX", and it is one of the most exciting, fast-paced markets around the world. It was established in 1971 when fixed currency exchange was introduced. Forex is when one currency is traded by another. The Forex market is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily turnover of $3.20 trillion. The major traders in this market are large banks, central banks, multinational corporations, governments and currency speculators. It is a true 24-hour market, operating from Sunday 5:00 PM ET to Friday 5:00PM ET.
Unlike other financial markets, investors can respond to currency fluctuations caused by economic, political events and psychological effects at the time they occur - day and night. Currencies are traded in pairs, usually against the US Dollar, such as Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY).
The extreme liquidity and the availability of high leverage and margin trading have helped to spur the market's rapid growth and made it the ideal place for many traders. Any position can be opened and closed within minutes, or can be held for months and years. The price fluctuations of the currencies are based on objective considerations of supply and demand and cannot be manipulated easily because the size of the market does not allow even the largest players, such as central banks or governments, to move prices at will.
Until recently, trading in the Forex market had been the domain of governments, large financial institutions and corporations, central banks, hedge funds and extremely wealthy individuals. The emergence of new technologies such as the internet has changed all of this, and now it is possible for small time and home investors to buy and sell currencies easily with the click of a mouse through their home computer.
Currencies are important to most people around the world, whether they realize it or not, because currencies need to be exchanged in order to conduct foreign trade and business. If you are living in the U.S. and want to buy cheese from France, either you or the company that you buy the cheese from has to pay the French for the cheese in Euros (EUR). This means that the U.S. importer would have to exchange the equivalent value of U.S. Dollars (USD) into Euros. The same goes for traveling. An English tourist in Paris can't pay in Sterling to see the Louvre because it's not the locally accepted currency. As such, the tourist has to exchange the Sterling for the local currency, in this case the Euros, at the current exchange rate.
The need to exchange currencies is the primary reason why the Forex market is the largest, most liquid financial market in the world.
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