Basics of Forex Trading

Forexmonopoly is a Forex Market educational and trading firm. We have been trading the Forex Market for quite some time now and have noticed that traders that are just starting out in their trading journey have a hard time learning the skill. Hence by the medium of this blog, we intend to help such traders.

Due to the attention that the Forex Markets gets because of its volatility and price swings, many traders start out their trading journey by trading in the currencies hoping to profit from the same, but little do they know about this market. It is important to understand what Forex is and how it works.

In this blog post, we will discuss helping traders understand the fundamentals of the market they move on to trading in the market. Stick around till the end to know about the secret of price movements of the currency pairs.

Learn the basics of forex trading

What is forex?

Foreign Exchange is the process of changing currencies. One currency is changed into another currency for various reasons. Foreign Exchange takes place for business purposes, investment purposes, and even for tourism purposes. Forex is a shorter word for Foreign Exchange.

Foreign Exchange is basically currency changing hands from buyers and sellers at an agreed price. This exchange of currency is done for various practical reasons making it the most volatile asset with the highest daily turnover of $ 6 Trillion worth of Foreign Exchange being traded daily.

How does forex work?

Whenever a Foreign Exchange is to be traded on the Foreign Exchange Market, these Foreign Currencies are traded in pairs. Hence, if a trader wants to trade the Dollar, he can’t just trade the standalone Dollar currency, he will have to trade either a pair of the Dollar and the Pound or the pair of Dollars and the Euro.

Currencies are listed on the market in pairs in which one currency is the base currency and the other currency is the quote currency. Trading in the currencies is always done by selling one currency to buy another, hence the price quotes of currencies that we see are basically how much the base currency is worth in the quote currency.

The currencies are listed as a three-letter code, of which the first two letters stand for the name of the country and the third stands for the currency of the country. For example, INR, IN — India, R — Rupee; USD, US — United States, D — Dollar.

Let us consider the currency pair of USDEUR, trading at 0.8250. In this, the Dollar is the base currency and the Euro is the quote currency. This is read as, currency pair of the Dollar Euro, quote price is 0.8250, which means that 1 Dollar is equal to 0.8250 Euro at that moment.

Forex market

The Foreign Exchange Market or the Forex Market is the place where the exchange of currencies takes place. The technical definition of Forex Market is that it is a global decentralized or over-the-counter market for trading the currencies. Let’s understand what this actually means.

The Forex Maret is a global market, hence it is accessible to individuals around the globe. It is a decentralized market which means that no single organization or institution controls the affairs of the market, it is a free and fair market. An over-the-counter market means that the exchange of currency between two parties takes place directly between them without any third-party supervision. Forex trading also does not take place at a physical or central location but is done over the Electronic Communication Networks (ECN) in various markets around the world.

Market timings

Unlike other asset classes such as equities and commodities, Forex is traded on the Forex Market 24 hours a day 5 days a week from Monday to Friday. The markets are open 24 hours a day is because of the different international time zones of countries. At any given time at least one market is open which allows trading to take place for 24 hours a day.

The daily Forex trading session starts with the opening of the Australian markets followed by the European and American markets. It is a normal thing for one country’s market timings to overlap another country’s market timings and these overlapped periods are the most active periods of trading. It is said that the New York and London session is the most active trading session.

The market hours are such because the Forex Markets consist of participants such as banks, corporations, hedge funds, asset management firms as well as retail participants. These participants are situated in different countries around the world and they access the Forex Markets according to their time zones, hence the 24 hours a day timing of the Rorex Market.

Forex market drivers

Since the Forex Market has currencies from all over the world listed, it gets lots of attention from individuals all over the globe for participating in them. The prices of the currency pairs are determined by transactions that take place between the buyers and sellers, but the actual factors that determine Forex prices are different.

Forex prices are primarily determined by the forces of demand and supply prevalent in the market, this demand and supply are influenced by the following:

1. Economic data

These are reports that are released either by government authorities or by private authorities that indicate the economic condition of countries. The Economic Data of a country influences the currency of the country as it indicates whether the country will see growth or decline.

2. News

News releases have a good influence on currency prices. This news adds to the volatility of the Forex Market. News releases could be about an election result or about some war breakouts. Forex Market participants keep check over such news releases that can affect the prices of currencies.

3. Central banks

These banks are the federal banks of countries that control the supply of the currency in the market. The actions of central banks of leading countries in the Forex Market have been affecting the Forex Markets.

4. Market sentiment

The sentiment of the participants is a collective influence of the above-mentioned factors, that have effects on the Forex Market. Confidence in a country’s currency will cause the currency’s value to soar, while uncertainty will cause the currency to lose value.

Bottom line

Before beginning to trade in any market, it is important to understand what the market is and what moves it. After reading this blog post, we believe readers will get an overview of the Forex Market.

You can feel free to ask even the smallest of questions regarding this blog post and we will revert as soon as possible. Since these blog posts are dedicated to educating readers, we are constantly looking out for topics to cover everything related to forex, so let us know about topics you would want to know more about and we will put it in process.

This blog originally published on my blog