The Currency Market

Foreign exchange trading has essentially been around since the advent of money. Of all the financial markets, the FX market can probably be considered to be among the most pure in the sense that supply and demand, in the free-floating currencies, is strictly what determines the prices. Research and analysis in FX proves valuable because the currency market is different than Wall Street. Unlike other markets, an FX transaction is not the exchange of cash for another asset, but rather the exchange of cash today in return for the acceptance of cash at a later date. From the very beginning, the FX market was designed to ensure that the market insiders had a considerable edge over the market outsiders. The FX market is a fundamentally unfair market for the non-professional to operate in because of the tight-knit nature of the market and its lack of regulation. A player's positioning on the FX food chain depends on the player's access to information and speed, and with no central clearing exchange, it can be difficult for non-professionals to gain access to this information and come up with an accurate view of the market.