Trading Forex

The Foreign Exchange market (Forex or FX for short) is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the Forex market accounts for daily tunrovers of around four trillion dollars and the market has been growing year on year.

EXPOSURE

The FOREX Market is a decentralized, Over-The-Counter (OTC) Market with currencies being traded against each other by Central Banks, Commercial & Investment Banks, Currency Speculators, Governments and other financial institutions.

ACCESSIBILITY

Unlike a traditional stock market, the foreign exchange market is divided into levels of access. At the top is the inter-bank market, which is made up of the largest commercial banks and securities dealers. Within the inter-bank market, Spreads, which are the difference between the bid and ask prices for the various currency pairs are razor sharp and vary widely from spreads available to investors outside the top-tier.

The difference between the bid and ask prices widens (from 0-1 pip to 1-2 pips for some currencies such as the EUR). This is due to volume. If a trader can guarantee large numbers of transactions for large amounts, they can usually demand a smaller difference between the Bid and Ask, which is referred to as better spread.

OPPORTUNITY

The interbank market caters for both the majority of commercial turnover and large amounts of speculative trading every day. A large bank may trade billions of dollars daily. Some of this trading is undertaken on behalf of customers, but much is conducted by proprietary desks, trading for the bank's own account.

Until recently, foreign exchange brokers did large amounts of business, facilitating interbank trading and matching anonymous counterparts for small fees. Today, however, much of this business has moved on to more efficient electronic systems, referred to as ECN.

FXCC's ECN model provides individual traders with direct access to 'interbank level' bid/offer spreads on leading currency pairs.