Gold Market Analysis

LISTS manipulation, see Forex scandal. For the football club, see FC Forex Braşov. For the U.S. FBI sting operation, see Dominic Brooklier#Bompensiero murder.

This article's introduction may be too long for the overall article length. Please help by moving some material from it into the body of the article. For more information please read the layout guide and Wikipedia's lead section guidelines. (January 2014)
Foreign exchange

Currency band Exchange rate Exchange-rate regime Exchange-rate flexibility Dollarization Fixed exchange rate Floating exchange rate Linked exchange rate Managed float regime
Markets

Foreign exchange market Futures exchange Retail foreign exchange
Assets
Currency Currency future Currency forward Non-deliverable forward Foreign exchange swap Currency swap Foreign-exchange option
Historical agreements

Bretton Woods Conference Smithsonian Agreement Plaza Accord Louvre Accord
See also
Bureau de change Hard currency

v t e
The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized market for the trading of currencies. The main participants in this market are the larger international banks. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of multiple types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends. The foreign exchange market determines the relative values of different currencies.[1]

The foreign exchange market works through financial institutions, and it operates on several levels. Behind the scenes banks turn to a smaller number of financial firms known as “dealers,” who are actively involved in large quantities of foreign exchange trading. Most foreign exchange dealers are banks, so this behind-the-scenes market is sometimes called the “interbank market”, although a few insurance companies and other kinds of financial firms are involved. Trades between foreign exchange dealers can be very large, involving hundreds of millions of dollars.[citation needed] Because of the sovereignty issue when involving two currencies, Forex has little (if any) supervisory entity regulating its actions.

the low margins of relative profit compared with other markets of fixed income; and
the use of leverage to enhance profit and loss margins

A foreign exchange market is a 24-hour over-the-counter (OTC) and dealers’ market, meaning that transactions are completed between two participants via telecommunications technology. The currency markets are also further divided into spot markets—which are for two-day settlements—and the forward, swap, interbank futures, and options markets. London, New York, and Tokyo dominate foreign exchange trading. The currency markets are the largest and most liquid of all the financial markets; the triennial figures from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) put daily global turnover in the foreign exchange markets in trillions of dollars. It is sobering to consider that in the early 21st century an annual world trade’s foreign exchange is traded in just less than every five days on the currency markets, although the widespread use of hedging and exchanges into and out of vehicle currencies—as a more liquid medium of exchange—means that such measures of financial activity can be exaggerated.

The foreign exchange market assists international trade and investments by enabling currency conversion. For example, it permits a business in the United States to import goods from the European Union member states, especially Eurozone members, and pay euros, even though its income is in United States dollars. It also supports direct speculation and evaluation relative to the value of currencies, and the carry trade, speculation based on the interest rate differential between two currencies.[2]

In a typical foreign exchange transaction, a party purchases some quantity of one currency by paying for some quantity of another currency. The modern foreign exchange market began forming during the 1970s after three decades of government restrictions on foreign exchange transactions (the Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states after World War II), when countries gradually switched to floating exchange rates from the previous exchange rate regime, which remained fixed as per the Bretton Woods system.

The foreign exchange market is unique because of the following characteristics:

its huge trading volume representing the largest asset

:

$1.490 trillion in spot transactions
$475 billion in outright forwards
$1.765 trillion in foreign exchange swaps
$43 billion currency swaps
$207 billion in options and other products
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Ancient
1.2 Medieval and later
1.3 Early modern
1.4 Modern to post-modern

1.4.2 Markets close
1.4.3 After 1973
2 Market size and liquidity
3 Market participants
3.1 Commercial companies
3.2 Central banks
3.3 Foreign exchange fixing
3.4 Hedge funds as speculators
3.5 Investment management firms
3.6 Retail foreign exchange traders
3.7 Non-bank foreign exchange companies
3.8 Money transfer/remittance

5.3 Market psychology
6 Financial instruments
6.1 Spot
6.2 Forward
6.3 Swap
6.4 Future
6.5 Option
7 Speculation
8 Risk aversion
9 Carry trade
10 Forex signals
11 See also