What is FOREX

Abbr. "FOREX" stands for Foreign Exchange, an exchange of currencies. When a person comes to trade currencies, e.g. buy one currency and sell another one - it is called currency exchange trading, or simply known as Forex.
Because the value of each currency always on the move, it fluctuates depending on the local and global economic factors, there is always an opportunity to profit on those changes/fluctuations - it is called currency speculation.

Euro, US dollar, Swiss Frank, British Pound and Japanese Yen - these are the most traded currencies in Forex. Of course, trading is not limited to those currencies, Forex offers variety of currencies one can trade.

If to describe in simple words how individuals trade Forex it would look next way:
Forex trading in its prevailing volume is done online.
A person finds a Forex broker, opens a trading account with the broker and deposits money.
Forex broker provides to trader so called Forex trading platform - an application, a working environment, where trader buys and sells currencies, dealing online - in other words he speculates to make money on the difference of currency rates.
In Forex currencies are traded in pairs.
EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/JPY, USD/CHF and so on.

The first currency in the exchange pair is referred to as the base currency and the second as the quote currency.
For example, EUR/USD exchange rate = 1.400
Here the price of the Euro is expressed in US dollars: 1 euro = 1.400 dollars
The exchange rate tells to trader how much of the quote currency should be paid to obtain one unit of the base currency.

A Quick Overview of FOREX

FOREX is a spot market, where foreign currencies are traded - bought and sold for profit.
FOREX is a worldwide currency speculation arena with no centralized place for trading and exchange.
FOREX is a huge market with trillions dollars turnover a day and the largest investors - banks, hedge funds, investment companies and so on.
FOREX is open to individual retail investors - Forex traders - through the services of Forex brokerage companies that provide an access to the currency exchange market and take care of buying and selling orders of their clients.
FOREX is a 24 hour market that is traded every day all year round, except for holidays.
FOREX allows trading over 150 foreign currency pairs, among which the most traded are: EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, AUDUSD, USDCHF, USDCAD and GBPJPY.
FOREX trading is based on technical (price charts) and fundamental (news, economic events) analysis.
FOREX is an online stay-at-home type of business for individual investors.
FOREX is an attractive financial instrument, which can be mastered by any person with any kind of education and/or social status.
FOREX is a type of market which nowadays can also be traded by automated online expert advisors without any human intervention.
FOREX is an alternative type of investment, which unlike any other investment carries one of the largest financial risks.
FOREX is a trading arena, where in order to succeed a trader needs to learn the rules of the market, its trends, moves and behavior, and be able to apply the knowledge under real trading conditions.
FOREX is difficult to trade without a trading method - a trading strategy or system.
FOREX is a fast growing industry, and by directly dealing with money it also became
a lucrative business to various scam dealers. Novice traders should be alert about any offers in Forex which sound too good to be true.
Finally, FOREX should never be associated with quick and easy money.