The forex market
The foreign exchange market is open 24 hours a day, five days a week, and has the largest daily turnover of any financial market, the stock market included.
Forex trading
Foreign currency trading, also called foreign exchange, forex or FX, can sound sophisticated when you see it in the financial news. The idea behind it is simple.
Forex trading is exchanging one currency for another, aiming to profit as the exchange rate between the two moves.
Forex is everywhere
Foreign exchange doesn’t only happen on a trading platform like Hummingbird. It takes place 24 hours a day, every day, all over the world.
Albert lives in Switzerland and is planning a trip to Japan. To pay for things while he travels, he uses Swiss francs to buy Japanese yen.
Later, Albert could buy yen at one rate and sell it at a higher one to try to make a profit. And if his business has an overseas office that reports in another currency, he could hold positions in several currencies at once, known as hedging, to limit losses from exchange-rate changes.