WHY FOREX?

01 Haziran 2009


The foreign exchange market is the world’s largest financial market, but it wasn’t always accessible to any typical trader. Remember, forex trading is not conducted on a regulated exchange and as a result, there are additional risks associated with forex trading. In the past, access to foreign exchange of currencies was limited to banks, hedge funds, major currency dealers and the occasional high net-worth individual. But smaller financial institutions wanted to take advantage of the many benefits forex offered over other markets, including its tremendous liquidity, 24-hour access 5.5 days of the week and the strong trending nature of currency exchange rates.

It was this entrepreneurial vision of the smaller financial institutions and the evolution of the Internet that made forex accessible at a retail level. These institutions, including GFT, combined the accessibility of the Internet and fast and efficient proprietary software with accurate pricing, charting abilities, technical indicators and news feeds, which allowed any interested speculator open access to trade currencies. From 2002 to 2005 the practice of trading forex has grown threefold and this growth curve continues still. So read more about the benefits of using GFT and our access the world’s largest, fastest, most exhilarating market.

Forex Trading – What are the Benefits?

You may already be aware of some of the benefits offered by the currency market (also known as forex, spot forex or currency trading). It is the fastest, largest and most liquid market in the world, but that is only the beginning of its advantages. As a very basic explanation, forex is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another in order to seek gaining a profit (or accruing a loss).

Today, almost anyone with the appropriate appetite for risk and an understanding of market trends and analysis can trade currencies online with GFT. There are many benefits of trading forex versus other types of financial markets, many benefits to choosing GFT as your forex dealer and much to learn if you’re new to currency trading. To start,
learn the benefits of trading with GFT and start improving your trading knowledge. You’ll be well on your way to reaching your full potential in the foreign exchange market.

Forex History

25 Kasım 2008



Foreign exchange history, origins of the forex
In order to gain a complete understanding of what forex is, it is useful to examine the reasons that lead to its existence in the first place. Exhaustively detailing the historical events that shaped the foreign exchange market into what it is today is of no great importance to the fx trader and therefore we happily will omit lengthy explanations of historical events such as the Bretton Woods accord in favor of a more specific insight into the reasoning behind foreign exchange as a medium of exchange of goods and services.

Originally our ancestors conducted trading of goods against other goods this system of bartering was of course quite inefficient and required lengthy negotiation and searching to be able to strike a deal. Eventually forms of metal like bronze, silver and gold came to be used in standardized sizes and later grades (purity) to facilitate the exchange of merchandise. The basis for these mediums of exchange was acceptance by the general public and practical variables like durability and storage. Eventually during the late middle ages, a variety of paper IOU started gaining popularity as an exchange medium.

The obvious advantage of carrying around ‘precious’ paper versus carrying around bags of precious metal was slowly recognized through the ages. Eventually stable governments adopted paper currency and backed the value of the paper with gold reserves. This came to be known as the gold standard. The Bretton Woods accord in July 1944 fixed the dollar to 35 USD per ounce and other currencies to the dollar. In 1971, president Nixon suspended the convertibility to gold and let the US dollar ‘float’ against other currencies.

Since then the foreign exchange market has developed into the largest market in the world with a total daily turnover of about 3.2 trillion USD. Traditionally an institutional (inter-bank) market, the popularity of online currency trading offered to the private individual is democratising forex and widening the retail market.