Please Wait...

FOREX TRADING
The foreign exchange market is the "place" where currencies are traded. Currencies are important to most people around the world, whether they realize it or not, because currencies need to be exchanged in order to conduct foreign trade and business. If you are living in the U.S. and want to buy cheese from France, either you or the company that you buy the cheese from has to pay the French for the cheese in euros (EUR). This means that the U.S. importer would have to exchange the equivalent value of U.S. dollars (USD) into euros. The same goes for traveling. A French tourist in Egypt can't pay in euros to see the pyramids because it's not the locally accepted currency. As such, the tourist has to exchange the euros for the local currency, in this case the Egyptian pound, at the current exchange rate.

The need to exchange currencies is the primary reason why the forex market is the largest, most liquid financial market in the world. It dwarfs other markets in size, even the stock market, with an average traded value of around U.S. $2,000 billion per day. (The total volume changes all the time, but as of August 2012, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reported that the forex market traded in excess of U.S. $4.9 trillion per day.)

Advertisement

One unique aspect of this international market is that there is no central marketplace for foreign exchange. Rather, currency trading is conducted electronically over-the-counter (OTC), which means that all transactions occur via computer networks between traders around the world, rather than on one centralized exchange. The market is open 24 hours a day, five and a half days a week, and currencies are traded worldwide in the major financial centers of London, New York, Tokyo, Zurich, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Sydney - across almost every time zone. This means that when the trading day in the U.S. ends, the forex market begins anew in Tokyo and Hong Kong. As such, the forex market can be extremely active any time of the day, with price quotes changing constantly.

Spot Market and the Forwards and Futures Markets
There are actually three ways that institutions, corporations and individuals trade forex: the spot market, the forwards market and the futures market. The forex trading in the spot market always has been the largest market because it is the "underlying" real asset that the forwards and futures markets are based on. In the past, the futures market was the most popular venue for traders because it was available to individual investors for a longer period of time. However, with the advent of electronic trading, the spot market has witnessed a huge surge in activity and now surpasses the futures market as the preferred trading market for individual investors and speculators. When people refer to the forex market, they usually are referring to the spot market. The forwards and futures markets tend to be more popular with companies that need to hedge their foreign exchange risks out to a specific date in the future.

What is the spot market?
More specifically, the spot market is where currencies are bought and sold according to the current price. That price, determined by supply and demand, is a reflection of many things, including current interest rates, economic performance, sentiment towards ongoing political situations (both locally and internationally), as well as the perception of the future performance of one currency against another. When a deal is finalized, this is known as a "spot deal". It is a bilateral transaction by which one party delivers an agreed-upon currency amount to the counter party and receives a specified amount of another currency at the agreed-upon exchange rate value. After a position is closed, the settlement is in cash. Although the spot market is commonly known as one that deals with transactions in the present (rather than the future), these trades actually take two days for settlement.

Read more: Forex Tutorial: What is Forex Trading? | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/university/forexmarket/forex1.asp#ixzz40f73T82n
Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook

Mesothelioma Law Firms - What Everyone Must Know


In this lifetime there are no guarantees. That is why, when it comes to mesothelioma cancer, filing a lawsuit in a timely manner is critical to get the compensation you deserve. There are many essential as well as mandatory legal factors such as time constraints to produce the suit, exposure to asbestos timelines, and the amount of damage done to the body due to working in a job where asbestos particles were inhaled on a daily basis and the employer did not have any safeguards in place against this.



Descriptions : Mesothelioma Law Firms - What Everyone Must Know


In order to determine the particular applicability of all these kinds of

factors requires a specialized knowledge as well as professional expertise so it's always wise to make the decision to employ the services of mesothelioma legal professionals. Sometimes to find precisely how much damage asbestos exposure has done to you monetarily as well as health-wise, the mesothelioma lawyer may hire an exclusive investigator to look in to the matter to determine what your potential compensation may be. Many businesses in the asbestos field have sacrificed the safety of their employees for added profit, and this has led to exposure to asbestos particles without proper breathing apparatuses to filter the harmful contaminants. This has led in turn to the development of mesothelioma cancer which starts in the respiratory system. When this scenario unfolds, mesothelioma law firms are a critical resource to look to when starting a lawsuit against the companies responsible. An established law firm will take on your case on a no fee basis and will deduct any compensation awarded to pay for the usage of their firm. You will also want to research the win to loss ratio in order to find the best firm to use for your lawsuit. It is imperative that upon the first signs of mesothelioma, the disease is properly diagnosed in order to begin the process of locating mesothelioma law firms since the cancer can be fast acting and time will be of the essence. A monetary compensation from a winning judgment in court will help ensure that both your medical bills and family will be properly taken care of.