FOREX MARKET, FOREX TRADING

Total newbies to the foreign exchange market can find reading a Forex quite intimidating (even baffling) at first. In fact, this is the most common initial hurdle. The quote is brief, but it packs in a great deal of useful information. And although it doesn't make a lick of sense to a newcomer, here's a quick, simple explanation of what it means.

The first currency is called the base currency and the other is the quote currency. The base currency value is always 1 (in this case 1 US dollar). The number in the quote tells you how many of the quote currency (Japanese yen) you can buy with one US dollar.

The difference between the bid price and the ask price in a Forex quote is called the "spread," and each tiny 0.01 unit is called a "pip." In our example, the spread for our USD/JPY quote is four pips. The spread for the most commonly traded currencies is usually that small. In general, you'll do most of your trading in US dollars, Japanese yen, Great Britain pounds, Euros, Swiss francs or Australian dollars. Also please keep in mind that when the competition really heats up some spreads will be as small as one pip.

On the other hand, for less heavily traded currencies, you may run into much larger spreads. But don't think that a small spread means tiny profits or losses. When you're trading hundreds of thousands of units, even that one pip spread can mean big money. And of course, similar trades may be repeated throughout the day and the week. This means that anytime you're reading a Forex quote, you'll recognize that this tiny little spread is more important than its meager size at first suggests.