COURSE 1 – FX BACKGROUND

What Is Forex

Foreign Exchange or Forex is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. The foreign exchange market is the largest financial market in the world, with volume of nearly $4 trillion daily. More than four times the aggregate amount of the U.S. equity and treasury markets combined. Unlike other financial markets, the Forex market has no physical location, no central exchange. It operates through an electronic network of banks, corporations and individuals trading one currency for another. Forex market operates on a 24-hour basis, spanning from one zone to another across the major financial centers.

Forex Trading Advantages

  • 24-hour market, 5.5 days per week
  • High liquidity, nearly $4 trillion a day (Source: Bank for International Settlements)
  • Low transaction cost (bid/ask spread), no commissions
  • No one can corner the market
  • 7major currency pairs as apposed to more than 2,000 stocks
  • Uncorrelated to the stock market
  • Flexible leverage

The Gold Standard & The Bretton Woods Agreement

In 1967, a Chicago bank refused a college professor by the name of Milton Friedman a loan in pound sterling because he had intended to use the funds to short the British currency. Friedman, he had perceived sterling to be priced too high against the dollar, wanted to sell the currency, then later buy it back to repay the bank after the currency declined, thus pocketing a quick profit. The bank’s refusal to grant the loan was due to the Bretton Woods Agreement, established twenty years earlier, which fixed national currencies against the dollar, and set the dollar at a rate of $35 per ounce of gold.

But the gold exchange standard didn’t lack faults. As an economy strengthened, it would import heavily from abroad until it ran down its gold reserves required to back its money. As a result, money supply would shrink, interest rates rose and economic activity slowed to the extent of recession. Ultimately, prices of goods had hit bottom, appearing attractive to other nations, which would rush into buying sprees that injected the economy with gold until it increased its money supply, and drive down interest rates and recreate wealth into the economy. Such boom-bust patterns prevailed throughout the gold standard until the outbreak of World War I interrupted trade flows and the free movement of gold.

After the Wars, the Bretton Woods Agreement was founded, where participating countries agreed to try and maintain the value of their currency with a narrow margin against the dollar and a corresponding rate of gold as needed. Countries were prohibited from devaluing their currencies to their trade advantage and were only allowed to do so for devaluations of less than 10%. Into the 1950s, the ever-expanding volume of international trade led to massive movements of capital generated by post-war construction. That destabilized foreign exchange rates as set up in Bretton Woods.

The Agreement was finally abandoned in 1971, and the US dollar would no longer be convertible into gold. By 1973, currencies of major industrialized nations became more freely floating, controlled mainly by the forces of supply and demand which acted in the foreign exchange market. Prices were floated daily, with volumes, speed and price volatility all increasing throughout the 1970s, giving rise to new financial instruments, market deregulation and trade liberalization.

In the 1980s, cross-border capital movements accelerated with the advent of computers and technology, extending market continuum through Asian, European and American time zones. Transactions in foreign exchange rocketed from about $70 billion a day in the 1980s, to more than $1.5 trillion a day two decades later.

The Euromarket

A major catalyst to the acceleration of foreign exchange trading was the rapid development of the euro-dollar market; where US dollars are deposited in banks outside the US. Similarly, Euromarkets are those where assets are deposited outside the currency of origin. The Eurodollar market first came into being in the 1950s when Russia’s oil revenue– all in dollars — was deposited outside the US in fear of being frozen by US regulators. That gave rise to a vast offshore pool of dollars outside the control of US authorities. The US government imposed laws to restrict dollar lending to foreigners. Euromarkets were particularly attractive because they had far less regulations and offered higher yields. From the late 1980s onwards, US companies began to borrow offshore, finding Euromarkets a beneficial center for holding excess liquidity, providing short-term loans and financing imports and exports.

London was, and remains the principal offshore market. In the 1980s, it became the key center in the Eurodollar market when British banks began lending dollars as an alternative to pounds in order to maintain their leading position in global finance. London’s convenient geographical location (operating during Asian and American markets) is also instrumental in preserving its dominance in the Euromarket.

Historical Growth Of The Forex Market

The following statistics is provided by Bank for International Settlements. (view source) Bank for International Settlements publishes Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity every three years. For more information, please visit Bank for International Settlements.