Is forex trading becoming more and more popular? Traders include speculators, but also large banks, institutional inevstors, governments, retail investors, etc.

Forex is short for the Foreign Exchange Market. It is a global, world-wide decentralized financial market for trading currencies. The foreign exchange market is what determines the value of different currencies around the world.

The foreign exchange market is used to facilitate global trade by enabling currency conversion to take place. Simply put, without the foreign exchange market, it would be impossible for someone to transfer their Dollars into Euros, or Yen, or any other currency. In addition, it would be impossible to get goods from places in the world that didn’t use the same currency because it would be impossible to verify how much your money was worth abroad.

The foreign exchange market is the most liquid financial market in the world. With the exceptions of the weekends, it trades 24 hours a day, every day. The average daily turnover is constantly growing.

The foreign exchange market is traded on by individuals, banks, corporations, currency speculators, governments, and retail investors. In the United States, trading on the foreign exchange market accounted for 17.9% of all financial exchange performed in the country. In the United Kingdom, that number is 36.7%, making the UK the most important centre for the foreign exchange market.

Unlike a traditional stock market, there are stratified levels of trade that one may enter into. The top level is the interbank market, made up from the largest commercial banks and securities traders. Deutsche Bank is the largest of these traders, with a market share o 15.64%. Next is Barclays Capital, with a market share of 10.75%, and then Credit Suisse, with 10.59%. Citibank is the American bank with the great market share, in 4th place with 8.88%.