Skip to main content

Forex Basics Part 1

This is the first in a series of articles that are intending to introduce beginning traders to all the essential aspects of foreign exchange. I will start by identifying and defining the essential aspects of foreign exchange trading, and key components that you will be exposed to as a forex trader.


Forex is an acronym for Foreign Exchange. The foreign exchange is a currency market where currencies are traded. Traders are trading one currency against another. There are very large players in this game such as, large banks, corporations, and countries. There is also the speculative trader. Most individual traders would fit into the speculative category. Speculative trading focuses on the value of one currency with regard to another. As a speculative trader you focus on or bet on which currencies will go up in value and which ones will go down. Fundamental economic news and political situations play an important roll in the fluctuation in value of a currency for any given country.


Forex is the largest financial market in the world. Daily trading volume exceeds $1.5 trillion. Comparing this to other financial markets such as equities at $50 billion daily trading volume, and the futures market at $30 billion in daily volume you can begin to realize the flexibility and infinite trading liquidity the FOREX has to offer. The FOREX is a 24 hour market. This means flexibility for you as a trader. This market never closes. You can always find good trading opportunities at your convenience. This is a 24 hour electronic online currency exchange.


Currencies are traded in pairs. Meaning when you buy one currency you are selling the cross currency. The position that you take long or short is indicative to how you think that pair will perform. For example, if you were to buy long USD/GBP, you are betting that the USD (US Dollar) will increase in value against the GBP (Great Britain Pound). You are actually buying the USD and simultaneously selling the GBP. If you were to go short on this pair you would be betting that the USD is going to decrease in value against the GBP. It can get confusing but fortunately the services that provide the trading platforms from which you will be placing trades will keep track of this for you. Everything is electronic and online, trading is done in real time. You can watch immediate results of all your trades. These are highly sophisticated programs tracking every movement in the currency market in real time.


Part 2 will focus more on currency pairs, trading platforms and charting software.

Popular posts from this blog

How To Start Trading The Forex Market Part 4

How Currencies are quoted and what moves individual currencies? ONE of the best advantages in FOREX Trading is The amount of money you need to place a trade (known as "margin") is all that can be lost ! You have to know, that despite the super-high leverage offered by some Forex brokers up to (400:1); meaning if you put up $ 1000 the broker will allow you to trade like you really have $400.000). Forex trading is still less riskier than Stock or Futures Trading, where you can loose more than you have deposited in your account. This type of LEVERAGE does NOT EXIST in the equities or futures market In the Equities or Futures markets, very often, sudden and dramatic moves occur, against which you can’t protect yourself, even by having placed your protective stops. Your position may be liquidated at a loss, and you’ll be liable for any resulting deficit in the account. But because of the FX market’s deep liquidity and 24-hour, continuous trading, dangerous trading gaps and limit m...
Read More »

Is It Safe To Invest In Shares Or The Forex

You feel yourself financially able and personally qualified to invest. You can meet the conditions of reasonable stability, reasonable flexibility, and reasonable caution. But nagging doubt remains. Wouldn't you really be better off with your extra cash in a savings account? Or a piece of real estate? In short, is it really safe to invest? Well, how much safety do you require? Since there are no absolutely sure things anywhere, safety must be looked at as a matter of degree. There are no guarantees of success in stock ownership, no guarantees against loss. Even the thoughtful, conscientious investor can be taken to the cleaners. It should be remembered, however, that investment in stocks is a way of sharing in the profit potential of American industry. Is the American economy safe? It seems to be. Since 1900 it has been rising in productivity at an average rate of 4 per cent per year. Our Gross National Product is now nearly $480 billion. By 1965, according to quite conservative es...
Read More »

Forex Exiting Positions At A Right Time

The presented article covers one of the most important (in author’s opinion) aspects of trading in general and FOREX trading in particular – managing of orders and positions. This includes choosing entry points, making decisions about exit points, stop-loss and take-profit of the trader. I hope this article will help new traders, who just began to work with FOREX, and also to experienced traders who trade regularly and regularly make or loose their money to the market. When I started to trade FOREX and made my first big losses and profits I began to notice when very important thing about the whole trading process. While the right time to enter a position was rarely a problem for myself (nearly 80% of all my open positions had gone into the “green” profit zone), the problem was hidden in the determining the right exit point for that position. Not only was it important to cut my risk on the potential losses with stop-loss orders, but to limit my greediness and take profit when I can take...
Read More »