WHAT IS A LOT?

In a 24-hour market, Forex trading begins each day in Sydney, and moves around the globe as the business day begins in each financial center, first to Tokyo, then London, and New York. Unlike any other financial market, investors can respond to currency fluctuations caused by economic, social and political events at the time they…

FOREX trading is not centralized on an exchange, as with the stock and futures markets. The Forex market is considered an Over the Counter (OTC) or “Interbank” market, due to the fact that transactions are conducted between two counterparts over the telephone or via an electronic network.

The most often traded or ‘liquid’ currencies are those of countries with stable governments, respected central banks, and low inflation. A large number of Foreign Exchange daily transactions involve trading the major currencies, which include the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and the Australian Dollar.

There are fixed and floating values for a pip depending upon the currency pair. When the USD is on the right side of the pair (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, and NZD/USD) the pip is value is fixed at $1.00 per 10,000 currency units. This is a fixed pip value. When the USD is on the left…

World currencies are exchanged in large because of international trade. For instance, consumers of one country purchase goods of another country. Also, when large companies do business with other global companies. Global investments and monetary diversification are additional reasons that make the FOREX market move.

The FOREX allows spot currency positions to be leveraged at various amounts depending on the broker – up to 50:1 leverage is common. This means that a 2% margin deposit ($200) allows you to control $10,000 of currency in a 1 Mini lot position in the FOREX market. FOREX trading is conducted on “margin” which…