INTRODUCTION The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global, worldwide decentralized financial market for

trading currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different 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 primary purpose of the foreign exchange is to assist international trade and investment, by allowing businesses to convert one currency to another currency. For example, it permits a US business to import British goods and pay Pound Sterling, even though the business' income is in US dollars. It also supports direct speculation in the value of currencies, and the carry trade, speculation on the change in interest rates in two currencies.[2] In a typical foreign exchange transaction, a party purchases a quantity of one currency by paying a 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 its huge trading volume representing the largest asset class in the world leading to high liquidity; its geographical dispersion; its continuous operation: 24 hours a day except weekends, i.e. trading from 20:15 GMT on Sunday until 22:00 GMT Friday; the variety of factors that affect exchange rates; the low margins of relative profit compared with other markets of fixed income; and the use of leverage to enhance profit and loss margins and with respect to account size.

As such, it has been referred to as the market closest to the ideal of perfect competition, notwithstanding currency intervention by central banks. According to the Bank for International Settlements,[3] as of April 2010, average daily turnover in global foreign exchange markets is estimated at $3.98 trillion, a growth of approximately 20% over the $3.21 trillion daily volume as of April 2007. Some firms specializing on foreign exchange market had put the average daily turnover in excess of US$4 trillion.[4]

The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global, worldwide decentralized financial market for trading currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different 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 primary purpose of the foreign exchange is to assist international trade and investment, by allowing businesses to convert one currency to another currency. For example, it permits a US business to import British goods and pay Pound Sterling, even though the business' income is in US dollars. It also supports direct speculation in the value of currencies, and the carry trade, speculation on the change in interest rates in two currencies.[2] In a typical foreign exchange transaction, a party purchases a quantity of one currency by paying a 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 its huge trading volume representing the largest asset class in the world leading to high liquidity; its geographical dispersion; its continuous operation: 24 hours a day except weekends, i.e. trading from 20:15 GMT on Sunday until 22:00 GMT Friday; the variety of factors that affect exchange rates; the low margins of relative profit compared with other markets of fixed income; and the use of leverage to enhance profit and loss margins and with respect to account size.

As such, it has been referred to as the market closest to the ideal of perfect competition, notwithstanding currency intervention by central banks. According to the Bank for International Settlements,[3] as of April 2010, average daily turnover in global foreign exchange markets is estimated at $3.98 trillion, a growth of approximately 20% over the $3.21 trillion daily volume as of April 2007. Some firms specializing on foreign exchange market had put the average daily turnover in excess of US$4 trillion.[4]

International trade
International trade is exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories.[ In most countries, it represents a significant share of gross domestic product (GDP). While international trade has been present throughout much of history (see Silk Road, Amber Road), its economic, social, and political importance has been on the rise in recent centuries. Industrialization, advanced transportation, globalization, multinational corporations, and outsourcing are all having a major impact on the international trade system. Increasing international trade is crucial to the continuance of globalization. Without international trade, nations would be limited to the goods and services produced within their own borders. International trade is in principle not different from domestic trade as the motivation and the behavior of parties involved in a trade do not change fundamentally regardless of whether trade is across a border or not. The main difference is that international trade is typically more costly than domestic trade. The reason is that a border typically imposes additional costs such as tariffs, time costs due to border delays and costs associated with country differences such as language, the legal system or culture. Another difference between domestic and international trade is that factors of production such as capital and labour are typically more mobile within a country than across countries. Thus international trade is mostly restricted to trade in goods and services, and only to a lesser extent to trade in capital, labor or other factors of production. Then trade in goods and services can serve as a substitute for trade in factors of production. Instead of importing a factor of production, a country can import goods that make intensive use of the factor of production and are thus embodying the respective factor. An example is the import of labor-intensive goods by the United States from China. Instead of importing Chinese labor the United States is importing goods from China that were produced with Chinese labor. One report in 2010 suggested that international trade was increased positively when a country hosted a network of immigrants, but the trade effect was weakened when the immigrants became assimilated into their new country.[2] The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global, worldwide decentralized financial market for trading currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different 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 primary purpose of the foreign exchange is to assist international trade and investment, by allowing businesses to convert one currency to another currency. For example, it permits a US business to import British goods and pay Pound Sterling, even though the business' income is in US dollars. It also supports direct speculation in the

value of currencies, and the carry trade, speculation on the change in interest rates in two currencies.[2] In a typical foreign exchange transaction, a party purchases a quantity of one currency by paying a 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 its huge trading volume representing the largest asset class in the world leading to high liquidity; its geographical dispersion; its continuous operation: 24 hours a day except weekends, i.e. trading from 20:15 GMT on Sunday until 22:00 GMT Friday; the variety of factors that affect exchange rates; the low margins of relative profit compared with other markets of fixed income; and the use of leverage to enhance profit and loss margins and with respect to account size. As such, it has been referred to as the market closest to the ideal of perfect competition, notwithstanding currency intervention by central banks. According to the Bank for International Settlements,[3] as of April 2010, average daily turnover in global foreign exchange markets is estimated at $3.98 trillion, a growth of approximately 20% over the $3.21 trillion daily volume as of April 2007. Some firms specializing on foreign exchange market had put the average daily turnover in excess of US$4 trillion.[4]

2) Introduction to Forex - Concepts and Terminologies

Here are some important concepts/terminologies of Forex. a) Spot rate A spot transaction is a straightforward (or outright) exchange of one currency for another. The spot rate is the current market price or 'cash' rate. Spot transactions do not require immediate settlement, or payment 'on the spot'. By convention, the settlement date, or value date, is the second business day after the deal date on which the transaction is made by the two parties. b) Bid & ask In the foreign exchange market (and essentially in all markets) there is a buying and selling price. It is important to perceive these prices as a reflection of market condition.

A market maker is expected to quote simultaneously for his customers both a price at which he is willing to buy (the bid) and a price at which he is willing to sell (the ask) standard amounts of any currency for which he is making a market. Generally speaking the difference between the bid and ask rates reflect the level of liquidity in a certain instrument. On a normal trading day, the major currency pairs EURUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF and GBPUSD are traded by a multitude of market participant every few seconds. High liquidity means that there is always a seller for your buy and a buyer for your sell at actual prices. c) Base currency and counter currency Every foreign exchange transaction involves two currencies. It is important to keep straight which is the base currency and which is the counter currency. The counter currency is the numerator and the base currency is the denominator. When the counter currency increases, the base currency strengthens and becomes more expensive. When the counter currency decreases, the base currency weakens and becomes cheaper. In telephone trading communications, the base currency is always stated first. For example, a quotation for USDJPY means the US dollar is the base and the yen is the counter currency. In the case of GBPUSD (usually called 'cable') the British pound is the base and the US dollar is the counter currency.

d) Quotes in terms of base currency Traders always think in terms of how much it costs to buy or sell the base currency. When a quote of 1.1750 / 53 is given that means that a trader can buy EUR against USD at 1.1753. If he is buying EURUSD for 1'000'000 at that rate he would have USD 1,175,300 in exchange for his million Euro. Of course traders are not actually interested in exchanging large amounts of different currency, their main focus is to buy at a low rate and sell at higher one. e) Basis points or 'pips' For most currencies, bid and offer quotes are carried down to the fourth decimal place. That represents one-hundredth of one percent, or 1/10,000th of the counter currency unit, usually called a 'pip'. However, for a few currency units that are relatively small in absolute value, such as the Japanese yen, quotes may be carried down to two decimal places and a 'pip' is 1/100th of the terms currency unit. In foreign exchange, a 'pip' is the smallest amount by which a price may fluctuate in that market. f) Euro cross & cross rates Euro cross rates are currency pairs that involve the Euro currency versus another currency. Examples of Euro crosses are EURJPY, EURCHF and GBPEUR. Currency pairs that involve neither the Euro nor the US dollar are called cross rates. Examples of cross rates are GBPJPY and CHFJPY. Of course hundreds of cross rates exist involving exotic currency pairs but they are often plagued by low liquidity. Ever since the Euro the number of liquid cross rates have decreased and have been replaced (to a certain extent) by Euro crosses.

OTC What Does Over-The-Counter Market Mean? A decentralized market of securities not listed on an exchange where market participants trade over the telephone, facsimile or electronic network instead of a physical trading floor. There is no central exchange or meeting place for this market.

SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a memberowned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence. More than 9,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries trust us every day to exchange millions of standardised financial messages.

participants
Banks The inter-bank market makes up both the majority of most turnovers commercially and the speculation of large amounts trading daily. A large bank may do business trading billions of dollars everyday. Some of the trading is made on behalf of the customers, but much is done by proprietary desks and doing the trading for the account of the bank itself. Commercial companies An important part of the Forex market usually comes from the financial business activities of companies who seek for foreign exchange to pay for the goods and services. The commercial companies most often trade small amounts fairly as compared to those of speculators or banks, and the trades often have short term and little impact on the market prices. Nevertheless, the trading flows are the major factor in the long-term currency direction of the exchange price. Some of the multinational companies can have an impact which is unpredictable when very big positions are covered because of the exposures which are not widely known by the other market participants. Central banks The National central banks of the countries also play a very important role in the foreign exchange markets. They would try to control the supply of money, inflation, and the interest rates as well and often have either the official and unofficial target rates for their country's currency. They can make of use of their substantial foreign exchange reserves often to stabilize their foreign exchange market. Milton Friedman argues that one of the best strategies for stabilization is for the central banks to purchase when the rate is so low, and to sell when the existing rates are too high. This means that they trade for the profit on a more precise information basis. The central bank's effectiveness in what is termed as "stabilizing speculation" is very doubtful since central banks will never declare bankruptcy if they make huge losses as opposed to other traders would, and there is no enough evidence that they do secure a profit in trading. A mere rumor or expectation of the central bank's intervention may be sufficient to stabilize a country's currency, however an intervention described as aggressive may be utilized many times every year in the countries with a dirty float of currency regime, moreover the central banks do not always meet their objectives. The combination of the

resources of the foreign exchange market can quickly overwhelm any central bank. Many scenarios of this nature were evident in the ERM collapse, 1992-1993, and in the more recent times in countries of Southeast Asia. Investment management firms Another participant is the investment management firms. They usually manage the large accounts on behalf of the clients like pension funds and endowments. They use the foreign exchange market to facilitate the trading transactions in terms of foreign securities. An example, is an investment manager with an international portfolio for equity will need to purchase and then sell foreign currencies in the spot market so as to pay for the purchases of the foreign equities and since the forex deals comes secondary to the actual decision for investments, they are not seen as a speculative scheme with the aim for maximizing the profit. What Does Spot Market Mean? 1. A commodities or securities market in which goods are sold for cash and delivered immediately. Contracts bought and sold on these markets are immediately effective. 2. A futures transaction for which commodities can be reasonably expected to be delivered in one month or less. Though these goods may be bought and sold at spot prices, the goods in question are traded on a forward physical market What Does Forward Market Mean? An over-the-counter marketplace that sets the price of a financial instrument or asset for future delivery. Contracts entered into in the forward market are binding on the parties involved. Forward markets are used for trading a range of instruments including currencies and interest rates, as well as assets such as commodities and securities.