Forex Market Snapshot

Forex Market Snapshot

Introduction

The following facts and figures relate to the foreign exchange market. Much of the information is drawn from the 2007 Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity conducted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in April 2007. 54 central banks and monetary authorities participated in the survey, collecting information from approximately 1280 market participants.

Excerpt from the BIS:

"The 2007 survey shows an unprecedented rise in activity in traditional foreign exchange markets compared to 2004. Average daily turnover rose to $3.2 trillion in April 2007, an increase of 71% at current exchange rates and 65% at constant exchange rates...Against the background of low levels of financial market volatility and risk aversion, market participants point to a significant expansion in the activity of investor groups including hedge funds, which was partly facilitated by substantial growth in the use of prime brokerage, and retail investors...A marked increase in the levels of technical trading – most notably algorithmic trading – is also likely to have boosted turnover in the spot market...Transactions between reporting dealers and non-reporting financial institutions, such as hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies, more than doubled between April 2004 and April 2007 and contributed more than half of the increase in aggregate turnover." - BIS

Structure

• Decentralised 'interbank' market
• Main participants: Central Banks, commercial and investment banks, hedge funds, corporations & private speculators
• The free-floating currency system began in the early 1970's and was officially ratified in 1978
• Online trading began in the mid to late 1990's

Source: BIS Triennial Survey 2007

Trading Hours

• 24 hour market
• Sunday 5pm EST through Friday 4pm EST.
• Trading begins in New Zealand, followed by Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America

Size

• One of the largest financial markets in the world
• $3.2 trillion average daily turnover, equivalent to:
  
• More than 10 times the average daily turnover of global equity markets¹
• More than 35 times the average daily turnover of the NYSE²
• Nearly $500 a day for every man, woman, and child on earth³
• An annual turnover more than 10 times world GDP⁴
  
  
• The spot market accounts for just under one-third of daily turnover

1. About $280 billion - World Federation of Exchanges aggregate 2006
2. About $87 billion - World Federation of Exchanges 2006
3. Based on world population of 6.6 billion - US Census Bureau
4. About $48 trillion - World Bank 2006.

Source: BIS Triennial Survey 2007

Major Markets

• The US & UK markets account for just over 50% of turnover
• Major markets: London, New York, Tokyo
• Trading activity is heaviest when major markets overlap⁵
• Nearly two-thirds of NY activity occurs in the morning hours while European markets are open⁶

5. The Foreign Exchange Market in the United States - NY Federal Reserve
6. The Foreign Exchange Market in the United States - NY Federal Reserve

Average Daily Turnover by Geographic Location

Source: BIS Triennial Survey 2007

Concentration in the Banking Industry

• 12 banks account for 75% of turnover in the U.K.
• 10 banks account for 75% of turnover in the U.S.
• 3 banks account for 75% of turnover in Switzerland
• 9 banks account for 75% of turnover in Japan

Source: BIS Triennial Survey 2007

Technical Analysis

Commonly used technical indicators:

• Moving averages
• RSI
• Fibonacci retracements
• Stochastics
• MACD
• Momentum
• Bollinger bands
• Pivot point
• Elliott Wave

Currencies

• The US dollar is involved in over 80% of all foreign exchange transactions, equivalent to over US$2.7 trillion per day

Currency Codes

• USD = US Dollar
• EUR = Euro
• JPY = Japanese Yen
• GBP = British Pound
• CHF = Swiss Franc
• CAD = Canadian Dollar
• AUD = Australian Dollar
• NZD = New Zealand Dollar

Average Daily Turnover by Currency

N.B. Because two currencies are involved in each transaction, the sum of the percentage shares of individual currencies totals 200% instead of 100%.

Source: BIS Triennial Survey 2007

Currency Pairs

• Majors: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF
• Dollar bloc: USD/CAD, AUD/USD, NZD/USD
• Major crosses: EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP, EUR/CHF

Average Daily Turnover by Currency Pair

Source: BIS Triennial Survey 2007

Retail Trading

• Anecdotal research from retail brokers suggests 90% of retail traders lose money, 5% breakeven, and 5% make money.

Risk Disclosure: Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.

Source: http://www.goforex.net/forex-market-snapshot.htm

5 Steps – How To Begin Forex Trading On The Online Account

Forex stands for Foreign Exchange Market (FX). It is the largest market for currency trading – that covers the whole world. A lot of information about Forex trading is available today. Analytics, news, trading strategies, trading signals, auto-trading systems and much, much more. This information is very complicated so novices usually get frustrated because of information overload.
And usually the most asked questions are: What to start from? Whom to listen to? Is it really so complicated to day-trade FOREX online? I’m not going to answer all of these questions right now – not in this short article. I want to summarize the knowledge and write some useful tips for novices to help them understand the whole thing and finally get ahead in this online Forex trading business.

So what exactly should you do as an aspired forex starter? Here is an exact plan for you:

1. Set a deadline – five or seven days (free days I mean). During these days try to absorb as much information about Forex Trading as possible. Use Google and your imagination to search. You can start from “forex”, “currency trading”, “forex trading” etc. After this period stop consuming information. At all. Just sit down and try to summarize it. The pen and the piece of paper will be truly useful for this.

2. Choose your first forex online broker. Don’t make things too complex and complicated – you just need to get started. Don’t start with huge online forex trading deposits, I recommend to start your forex trading from mini-forex online account or even forex demo account if you don’t have a few hundred dollars to open mini.

3. Pick your primary online forex trading currency pair and stick to it for at least three-four weeks. Get used to this currency. I recommend eur/usd, gbp/usd, aud/usd and cad/usd but that’s not of vital importance, pick the forex currency pair what you like the most.

4. Choose your online forex trading strategy – and use it for three-four weeks no matter what happens on the forex market. Then decide, if this forex trading system is worth using or not. This step looks very complicated for the majority of forex starters, but it isn’t really so hard to choose online forex trading strategy. I’ll cover this topic in more detail later. For now – just choose what’s simple and free. Believe me, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel.

5. Manage the online forex trading risks. Use forex stop-loss orders to control your potential loss. Don’t risk more than 10% of your deposit in one deal if your deposit is less that $10 000 (and it should be less – remember what I said earlier about mini-forex).

If you make these steps, you will finally move ahead in your online forex trading, so I recommend you to begin right now. Remember – your success depends on your knowledge, skills and ability to make the right decisions at the right time. I hope you will!

By: Cas Jones

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

P.S. I recommend you to try out this Online Forex Broker Trading Platform + FREE Forex Ebook . You won't need to download the software, Account can be opened As Fast As 5 Minutes. Trade USD vs. All Major Currencies and Start for As Little As $100. Leverage Up to 200:1 is available for You. Also You can Comfortably use Your Credit Card to deposit funds. So Open Forex Trading Account and Enjoy the Trading Right Now!

Source: http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/5-Steps---How-to-Begin-Forex-Trading-on-the-Online-Account/425357

FOREX-Euro softer, focuses on ECB and Trichet

Thu Feb 7, 2008 3:52am EST

By Ian Chua

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The euro was struggling to make any headway on Thursday ahead of the outcome of the European Central Bank's policy meeting with some investors betting the inflation-fighting central bank might soften its hawkish stance.

While markets expect no imminent changes to interest rates, the euro had been under pressure this week after surprisingly weak euro zone service sector data on Tuesday fuelled expectations the ECB might have to bring forward any rate cuts to shore up growth.

"The euro has been a little bit weak in the past couple of days and probably the market is looking for the ECB to tone down a little bit its hawkishness, but we don't think this will happen at this meeting," said Marcus Hettinger, global FX strategist at Credit Suisse.

The single European currency had also been hit by weaker equity markets this week. "Today, some European markets are in negative territory, so that is bringing a little downside for the euro," he added.

The FTSEurofirst 300 share index lost half a percent in early trading, hurt by bad news from the tech sector.

At 0825, the euro was a touch softer against the dollar at $1.4614 on the day, holding near a two-week low of around $1.4590 touched a day earlier. Versus the Japanese currency, the euro was also slightly weaker at 155.78 yen .

Against a basket of major currencies, the dollar edged up 0.1 percent to 76.225 .DXY.

In contrast to the United States, Canada and Britain, the ECB has not yet gone down the path of cutting interest rates because of price pressures in the 15 countries using the euro. In January, euro zone inflation hit a record high.

But recent signs of faltering growth in Spain, Italy and elsewhere in the bloc are expected to weigh on the ECB Governing Council at this morning's meeting. For investors, the main focus will be on what ECB's President Jean-Claude Trichet says at a news conference at 1330 GMT, following the rate decision at 1245 GMT. The ECB is widely seen holding rates steady at 4 percent.

"Our focus will be on whether Trichet concedes that the outlook for slower global growth will reduce upside CPI risks and/or if he states that the Council considered all options, including an easing, which would shift the bias toward neutral," said analysts at Calyon.

"The latter in particular would hint at a rate cut before the June move, which we currently forecast, and prompt a sell off in EUR/USD," they said in a report

Should Trichet stick to the hawkish script, the euro will likely benefit, but given expectations that the ECB will eventually have to lower rates, any boost to the currency should prove short lived, Calyon added. The Bank of England (BoE) will also be holding its policy-setting meeting on Thursday and is widely expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 5.25 percent to head off a sharp consumer-led slowdown.

Sterling, which has fallen in recent sessions, slipped 0.2 percent to $1.9566 ahead of the BoE decision due at 1200 GMT.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/usDollarRpt/idUSL0724752320080207?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Daily Forex Overview

Thu, Feb 7 2008, 08:59 GMT
by Raivis Zile

Dukascopy Swiss FX Group

Previous session overview

On Wednesday, the dollar jumped within a narrow range from losses to gains against the euro as equities fluctuated with risk appetite.

Markets expect the ECB to keep rates steady at 4.0%, with Trichet acknowledging some downside risk but still focused on the bank's single mandate to control prices and the pressure it faces from high inflation.

Yesterday's US ISM non-manufacturing report was a shocker, collapsing from 53.2 to 44.6 in January.

The Euro weakened against the dollar today as a stronger than expected productivity report was released. There are signs of an economic slowdown, after yesterday's euro zone retail report showed a -0.1 decline despite Christmas spending.

The Japanese yen strengthened against the dollar. Asian stocks posted their biggest loss in two weeks, with worries about the health of the global economy.

The British pound fell briefly to 1.9554 in European morning and later briefly bounced to 1.9636 ahead of the interest rate decision from the Bank of England, which is widely expected to cut rates by 25 basis points to 5.25% from 5.50%.

The Australian dollar continued to weaken Thursday, as yet more negative credit headlines on Wall Street spooked investors, sending higher yielding currencies lower. The Australian and New Zealand dollar weakened against the dollar as investors unwound their carry trades after the MSCI Asia Pacific Index of regional shares fell.

Market expectation

Today EUR ECB President Trichet Speaks: as usual, the main event of the day; we have to pay attention to comments regarding inflation and growth: If Trichet implies that (the ECB) may change its hawkish stance, investors will likely sell the euro.

EUR/USD is right now at 1.4610 bearish in daily and 4 hours charts, yet the pair will have to break the key Fibonacci level mentioned yesterday, 1.4589, 61.8% of the 1.4365/1.4950 rally, to continue in that direction.

GBP/USD is quoting at 1.9603, tending bearish despite also rebounding around the Fibonacci level mentioned yesterday, 1.9575 61.8% Fibonacci rally 1.9337/1.9957, as the pair was unable to confirm under that point.

USD/JPY is quoting at 106.33 and despite the range the pair is into, bigger charts are tending lower.

This Saturday, the Group of Seven (G7) will meet in Tokyo to discuss high oil prices, the economic outlook.

With dollar appreciating on risk aversion (American stocks continue going down while gold return to the 900 level) and US data continues weak, today could be a definition day for the American currency.

Today we will see the release of Japan's machine tools, U.K. industrial and manufacturing production, German factory orders and U.S. pending home sales.

Source: http://www.fxstreet.com/fundamental/market-view/daily-forex-overview/2008-02-07.html