The Forex (Foreign Exchange Market) exists because multi-national corporations and nations need to buy and sell goods/services from outside sources. To do that, they need to exchange their home currency with that of other nations. As you know, not all currencies have the same buying power so nations, banks, and corporations exchange their money with one another just as tourists do when traveling abroad-same concept, just a LOT bigger scale!In fact, the Forex is the single largest financial market in the world and upwards of 1.8 trillion dollars are traded every day-between the hours of 5 p.m. EST Sunday thru 4 p.m. EST Friday. Between those hours, the Forex market is open and there are always brokers out there willing to buy and sell positions. However, unlike the NYSE, there is no centralized exchange but rather an informal network of computers supplied by investment houses, centreal banks, and other large players which help facilitate the trades.The forex market actually trades dozens of different currency pairs. The base currency is the first in the pair and was used to set up the trading account. The counter currency is the second in the pair and is sometimes referred to as the "terms" currency. A typical lot is $100,000 and an investor might be interested in the currency pair USD/CAN for instance. That means that the investor would buy $100,000 worth of Canadian dollars with the base currency (USD) at the current exchange rate in order to open a position.
BY Kent Douglas
