Courses

FX Market Overview

The origins of the FX market
The foreign exchange market as we know it today has existed since 1973 when the Smithsonian Agreement and European Joint Float failed... more »

Market size and growth
Foreign exchange is currently the world's largest single financial market. According to the most recent BIS Triennial Survey (2004), daily turnover in the FX markets is approximately equivalent to USD 1.9trn...more »

Currencies and their liquidity
The FX market is substantial in terms of range as well as daily volume traded. At present there are some one hundred and seventy currencies in use around the globe. However, very few of these currencies show substantial liquidity... more »

The structure of the market
The FX market is decentralised, with activity taking place on a variety of platforms and exchanges. At the top of the hierarchy are the primary markets, such as the EBS platform, which have historically only been accessible to banks, although this is now gradually changing...more »

FX market participants
The FX market includes a variety of participants, including central banks, banks, non-bank financial entities (including real money and leveraged asset managers), commercial companies and retail traders... more »

Technology
Recent years have seen FX switch from being a phone based to online market place. Interbank voice broking in FX has largely disappeared, to be replaced by electronic interbank broking platforms such as the EBS platform... more »

Recent developments
Growth in speculative retail activity has been particularly strong recently. It also currently shows little sign of abating, with many retail FX trading platforms reporting triple digit percentage growth year on year to 2006... more »