What is Futures Market

Currency futures are futures markets where the underlying commodity is a currency exchange rate, such as the Euro to US Dollar exchange rate, or the British Pound to US Dollar exchange rate. Currency futures are essentially the same as all other futures markets (index and commodity futures markets), and are traded in exactly the same way.

Futures based upon currencies are similar to the actual currency markets (often known as Forex), but there are some significant differences. For example, currency futures are traded via exchanges, such as the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange), but the currency markets are traded via currency brokers, and are therefore not as controlled as the currency futures. Some day traders prefer the currency markets, and some day traders prefer the currency futures. I recommend the currency futures as they do not suffer from some of the problems that currency markets suffer from, such as currency brokers trading against their clients, and non centralized pricing.