Forex 101

 

Introduction to the Forex

 

The purpose of trading on any market is to buy low and sell high. The foreign currency market FOREX is no exception. The goods traded on this market are rates of currencies of different countries. As any other goods the currencies have their prices.

 

To settle transactions between businesses located in different countries, governments, speculative transactions and so forth, banks around the world execute currency trades on FOREX market. Depending on various trade, economical and other parameters, interest rates, central bank policies, time of the day, preferences and anticipations of the market players, and many other causes, the rates, that is prices, of currencies stay in ceaseless motion.

 

Your task as a trader is to determine the trend of the rate and buy an appreciating currency or sell a depreciating one, and then take your profits through execution of a reverse transaction.

 

Our dealing center gives you the opportunity to use software to obtain real time currency quotations from different banks and largest world exchanges participating in FOREX market. At the same time, the rate charts for every currency are displayed for you, and hottest economical News that may affect currency rates now or in the future directly or indirectly are fed to your screen.

 

And, at last, you will have a special trading account allowing you to buy and sell desired currencies. Despite of having US dollars in your account, you may start your trading from selling japanese yens not concerning yourself with not having bought them in advance.

 

Some Codes, Numbers and Definitions

 

Each currency is assigned a three-letter code. For example, US dollar is coded – USD (United States Dollar), euro is coded EUR (EURo), Swiss frank is coded CHF (Confederation Helvetica Franc), Japanese yen is coded JPY (JaPanese Yen), British pound is coded GBP (Great British Pound). Currency rates are equal to ratios of currency units of different countries relative to each other. The rates are represented by 6-letter words composed of two three-letter currency codes.

 

The first position is occupied, as a rule, by the code of a more expensive currency. The rates are expressed in units of the second currency per unit of the first one. For example, rates USDCHF (USD-CHF) show the number of Swiss franks in one US dollar, but rates GBPUSD (GBP-USD) show the number of US dollars having to be paid for one British pound.

 

The rates are usually expressed as five-digit numbers. For example, USDJPY = 121.44 means that 1 US dollar is valued at 121.44 Japanese yens (i.e. they are willing to pay you that many yens for one US dollar while you are buying or selling). At the same time, GBPUSD = 1.6262 means that 1 British pound is valued at 1.6262 US dollars. Generally, if the rate XXXYYY = Z, it means that one unit of XXX is worth Z units of YYY.

 

When the rate has changed, for example USDJPY = 121.44 to USDJPY = 121.45 or GBPUSD = 1.6262 to 1.6263, they say that the rate has moved 1 point. As it follows from the information above, yen in this example has DEPRECIATED by 1 point, but the pound has APPRECIATED, also by 1 point.

 

While watching the charts, you should keep in mind that only euro (EURUSD) and British pound (GBPUSD) charts reflect real movements of the rates of these currencies (that is, chart going up, means increasing price), as growth (that is, charts moving up) mean decreasing rates (prices) for the other currencies.

 

Your trading account is kept in US dollars, this is why it would help to know the worth of this 1 point expressed in other currencies. The point’s worth is determined by the following algorithm: you should divide the size of a lot by the rate disregarding the position of the decimal point. For example, in the example above the worth of one point USDJPY expressed in US dollars = 100000 / 12144 = $8.24. Or, for GBPUSD one point’s worth = 100000 / 16262 =$6.15. Consequently, the worth of one point is different not only for different currencies, but also for the same currency in different quotations.