Forex market trading is trading currencies worldwide. Just about every country in the world are involved in the forex trading markets, where money is bought and sold, based on the value of that currency at the particular time. As some currencies are not so strong, it is not going to be traded heavily, as the currency is stronger and worth more, more investors and traders are going flock to invest in that market at that particular time.

Forex trading takes place twenty four hours every day, where about two trillion dollars exchange hands every day. That amount of money eclipses other investment markets such as the stock markets and the futures markets. For example, the US stock market trades about 200 billion dollars everyday, while the commodities markets trade over 400 billion dollars each day. These figures give a good picture of how large and liquid the forex market is.

The currencies that are traded on the forex markets are from countries all over the world, though most of the investors’ trade on a few major currencies such as the US Dollar, Euro, the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, the Swiss Franc, as well as the Australian and Canadian Dollars. Every currency has it own three-letter symbol that will represent the particular currency that is being traded. For example, the Japanese Yen will be shown as JPY, the United States Dollar will be shown as USD, the Euro is EUR, and the British Pound will be displayed as GBP, while the Swiss France will show as CHF. You can trade among many currency pairs in one day, or you can just trade only one currency pair. The advantage of trading forex is there is not that much currency pairs to keep track of. Compare it to the stock market where there are thousands of different companies that offer their stocks in the market. Trying to research even a small number of all the companies listed will take a very long time.

Getting started in forex trading is not hard. In fact, setting up a forex trading account costs less than setting up say, a stock trading account. Many forex market makers allow individuals to create a trading account for only $300. The reason this is possible is because forex trading involves a lot of leverage, more leverage than other investment markets. The leverage can start at 100:1 and can get as high as 400:1. This means you can control a large amount of currency with a smaller capital outlay. For example, in a 100:1 leverage, you can trade $10,000 amount of currency using only $100. Though it needs to be reminded that though the use of leverage can generate high returns, it also means that it can cause spectacular losses. What’s more important that minimum account size, however, is to get educated in forex trading, such as learning technical trading tactics and keeping track of forex news.

Another advantage in trading forex, and a very important one at that, is the absence of brokerage fees. Over time, this will save you a lot of money, especially having in mind that forex trades are executed regularly. All said, forex trading provides a proven method of making huge profits, as long as you keep an eye on the pitfalls and get yourself educated.