The foreign exchange market, which is usually known as “forex” or “FX,” is the largest financial market in the world. Compared to the measly $22.4 billion per day volume of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the foreign exchange market looks absolutely ginormous with its $5.3 TRILLION a day trade volume.
What is traded in forex?
The simple answer is MONEY.
Because you’re not buying anything physical, forex trading can be confusing.
Think of buying a currency as buying a share in a particular country, kinda like buying stocks of a company. The price of the currency is usually a direct reflection of the market’s opinion on the current and future health of its respective economy.
In forex trading, when you buy, say, the Japanese yen, you are basically buying a “share” in the Japanese economy. You are betting that the Japanese economy is doing well, and will even get better as time goes. Once you sell those “shares” back to the market, hopefully, you will end up with a profit.
In general, the exchange rate of a currency versus other currencies is a reflection of the condition of that country’s economy, compared to other countries’ economies.
The following video is an interview with Nathaniel Ginzon, a financial expert in the Philippines as he explains FOREX Market in a TV program at ANC “On The Money”, an ABS-CBN News Channel’s Personal Finance Program hosted by Edric Mendoza, Salve Duplito and Lexi Schulze
