Forex Trading - What Exactly Is It?

Forex trading is the process of buying and selling foreign currencies with the sole aim of making a profit. Foreign exchange rates are simply the price of one currency in terms of another one. If the exchange rate between the US$ and the £ is $2=£1, this means that one pound of sterling will cost two US dollars. In any exchange rate there is a pair of currencies involved. So to take the above example, if we wanted to buy $1,000 dollars with sterling it would cost us £500. So you are buying one currency and selling another and Forex traders are effectively betting on the movements between these currencies i.e. the price moving up or down. Foreign exchange traders will make money if the currency they are buying increases in value relative to the currency they are selling. The foreign exchange market is highly liquid – this means that trades are happening all the time which causes the exchange rate of the currencies to fluctuate regularly. People who are serious about trading in foreign exchange currencies need to make sure that they have access to “real” time information or else they stand to lose money on every deal they make.The Forex is the largest financial market in the world and one of the most speculative. It is not based in any one location so you can effectively trade 24 hours a day, five days a week. The week begins in Australia on a Monday morning when markets open there and ends on Friday afternoon New York time. All trades are made via your computer screen so you don’t physically handle the cash i.e. you don’t have a pocket full of Euro’s or Dollars. This makes it easy for traders to make money as they can work trading around their day job. But people forget that it is also easy to lose money. Anyone who tells you that you will never lose money on foreign exchange trading is lying. The same goes for anyone who tells you that they can predict the exact movements of the market due to advances in science – that is complete rubbish. If price movements could be predicted so accurately there would be no market to trade in! For a market to exist there must be buyers and sellers who have their own beliefs as to the value or price of something. It is these differences in opinions and the unpredictability of price movements that makes a market like the Forex work.However, your chances of losing money are statistically less if you educate yourself as to how the markets work. You will also improve your chances of making money if you purchase some software that you can program, or comes pre-programmed to watch the markets for you. You can then be alert to the possibilities that are more likely to make you fast cash. You will always have trades where you will lose some money – you just need to make sure that you win more than you lose. And as with any form of gambling, only play with money you can afford to lose.