Talk:Foreign exchange market

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    "Such day-long access to foreign exchange allows traders the luxury of dealing after normal hours or even during national holidays in their country of residence."

    The 24 hour nature of FX makes it one of the most dynamic and difficult markets to be in. Is that not a pain more than a luxury? Hersttat Risk and troubles from the Hersttat Bank are well known lessons. doles 14:54, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)


    Contents

    [edit] The bloomberg quote

    The bloomberg quote is not an add for bloomberg, but a record of how much the forex market has grown, it is very pertinant stuff. Explain why someone tried to take it out?

    [edit] Futures vs. Spot

    There needs to be some clarification on these pages. Retail Forex Trading is done primarily on the SPOT market, not the Futures market. This is an important distinction because the two markets act very differently. Futures is typically 3 month delivery, while spot is 2 day (or even almost immediate, where a trader can open and close trades within seconds), futures have no market makers of last resort, while Retail Forex companies serve as market makers. Futures leverage is usually not extended past 20:1, while in Forex it is not uncommon to see 200:1 or even 400:1.

    [edit] luxury or pain?

    "Such day-long access to foreign exchange allows traders the luxury of dealing after normal hours or even during national holidays in their country of residence."

    The 24 hour nature of FX makes it one of the most dynamic and difficult markets to be in. Is that not a pain more than a luxury? Herstatt Risk and troubles from the Herstatt Bank are well known lessons. doles 14:56, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)

    "Luxury" is a strong word. I also don't know what was meant by that. Probably: In my case I like to trade after midnight until 4am, so it would make me restrected if the market would be closed.
    I don't know what you mean by Herstatt Risk in this context. What does it has to do with 24 hours trading?

    --PBS27 09:26, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

    The 24-hour market is a very important feature for retail Forex traders, as it makes it easier to manage risk. In the stock market, many of the major moves happen while the market is closed, and it is therefore impossible to trade at a good price. In Forex, most major moves happen while the market is open, and stop loss orders are effective. Mcavic (talk) 17:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Cyun's edit

    Cyun: Thank you for your image. I reverted other parts of your edit for the following reasons. First, I believe your section on Bretton Woods was POV and not very informative about the topic at hand. Perhaps some of this belongs at International Finance. Secondly, I'm not sure why you created so many sections but left them blank. thanks Mgw 16:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] re: Cyun's edit

    Well, I'm not sure how you can say what I wrote about Bretton woods is just point of view since it is all factually correct, and basiclly just a summary of the accord; Totally objective material. Also, this accord.. and the reason it failed is partly responsible for why forex is as it is today. Secondly, I created those sections because it is a work in progress which I intended to keep working on through the week.. If someone else were to come along and want to work on it they would have an outline. I'm just trying to do my part here. later --Cyun 19:47, May 1, 2005 (UTC)


    [edit] External links

    Please refer to Wikipedia:External links when adding to this article. DocendoDiscimus 08:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] Inflation

    The aritlce writes "Suppose he turns a Euro 10,000 investment in to Euro 11,000. Also suppose in this instance that the Euro is down versus the U.S. dollar by 20%. The price of imported goods will have increased, so it leads to inflation. In other words, even though our Belgian dentist has made a significant profit on his investment, his purchasing power has not increased as much, and might even have gone down"

    However inflation is a general increase in prices, and there's no reason to believe that the U.S. Dollar fluctuation would trigger inflation... The idea is good, but the way it's written is very ambiguous. I'm seeking a second opinion on this before changing it.

    --PBS27 09:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

    I have cleared the above mentioned fuzzy bit, which I should have done long ago, had I not been lazy, and slightly upgraded the content. Htournyol 14:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] FX scams/ small traders/ broker links

    I think in the extrernal links and related sections, we ought to be careful not to allow pure advertising for on-line FX brokers (clearly against Wikipedia rules, see link above). Beyond this there are quite a few FX scammers out there. I'm not saying that the links I've removed are scammers, but if they are pure adverts they should be removed, especially because of the possibility of scammers.

    You've also removed some genuinely good links to independent information and commercial services. I think we should allow links to commercial sites if the linked page is not trying to sell anything, i.e. if it's purely informational. I also think we should allow links to some online FX trading services, especially the large reputable ones like FXCM, FXSOL etc. I've actually found some of the links to commercial services quite useful. As long as we keep everything in appropriate sections, we should be able to control and avoid linkspam. I'm adding some of the deleted links back in, at least the ones I know to be reputable or useful. NFH 19:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Data providers

    The links violate both WP:EL and WP:NOT. Please do not re-add them to the article. They are not necessary for the understanding of the subject. --GraemeL (talk) 22:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

    I'm sorry, but I don't see how OANDA's free currency converter violates WP policy. It is an extremely relevant and useful resource, which OANDA don't charge for. Having a link to a currency convertor from the article about FX makes perfect sense. NFH 22:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    Oops, taking a look back, that one is OK. Feel free to re-insert it. The others all needed a subscription to view data. Does that sound OK? --GraemeL (talk) 22:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

    I agree with GraemeL. Even the converter does not belong. It is merely one of thousands and its only use is to draw people to the site for the ads and links shown all around the converter. - Tεxτurε 22:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

    I agree there are a lot of other currency convertors, but the really useful thing about OANDA is their FX History, which I find a useful alternative for historic market data whenever I don't have access to Reuters. Perhaps we should include a link to this, rather than the basic convertor? NFH 19:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


    Why the vamist.com link vas removed? It doesn't violate any policy. Is not a forex broker and it doesn't sell anything.. There are just pure informative articles written by Romanian people in Romanian and English language. I will add this link back because I think it was removed without a reason.

    [edit] deleting undocumented manipulation charges

    re: "Some retail forex brokers have been accused of routinely manipulating spot market rates in order to trigger their clients' stop-loss orders and other unethical practices. Industry insiders can confirm this, but since the currency market is largely unregulated, this practice may not in fact be illegal."

    I did a major rewrite of the Individual speculator section a while ago, including putting in the CFTC link and am very much in favor of warning retail traders of the potential for fraud and manipulation in this market. I've tried to rewrite the above before, and believe more-or-less what it says is true. Nevertheless, it seems here to be a sweeping generalization, using weasel terms. This should be done right, with good sources, in a believable manner. I've searched and only found fairly iffy sites where one broker (or advertiser for a broker) accuses all (or most) other brokers of fairly general things. I'm starting to smell a con. Can anybody find a reputable source giving hard facts? If so it would be good to include it. I'll delete the above for now. Smallbones 16:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Integrating new material on market participants

    I like the new material on market participants and have tried (and failed?) to integrate it better with the previous material. There is still a lot of duplicated material.

    I will say however that the earlier material is better sourced, more fact based, and some of the new market participants material looks like opinion, argument etc. which doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. I think we can go through it and tighten up the material and the article will be much better than ever. Smallbones 20:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Moved some material to new Forex scams article

    There's been a lot of material added recently about forex scams. This was threatening to take over the page, and retail forex trading really is a very minor part of the market, so I moved most of this to a new article, while keeping the basics on this page as well.

    I can assure you that I am not a broker and don't work for Saxobank. The forex scams article should prove that!

    I'd like to see your opinions of and additions to that article over there, rather than here.

    Perhaps those folks with criticisms of FX speculation could put all that material in 1 paragraph and it could go neatly under speculation.

    Smallbones 22:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Removed tag

    The speculation section is not in violation of the NPOV policy. A neutral point of view means that one presents all the different opinions on a subject. The section may need linguistic fine tuning though.


    Fact is, speculative currency trading is highly controversial, and every time the subject is covered by mass media it arouses a lot of controversy and attention. Take for instance, a look at the George Soros versus Mahathir bin Mohamad case.


    By deliberately ignoring or censoring this fact, one does in fact take a non-neutral stance. Since most parts of the article is probably written by currency traders, and some of them may have a political or personal agenda against this presentation of a more fair and broad view on curreny trading, some will consider the section inappropriate. To be neutral, this article should represent all views on currency trading, and the viewpoint of traders and some economists have already been presented.


    Likewise, no one, not even Nixon supporters, would argue that he was a controversial president. Like it or not, it is a fact.


    "In most contries currency speculation is considered a highly suspect activity"

    (Fact) (Note that the writer doesn't say that it IS a highly suspect activity, but that it is viewed as such by many - which is indisputeable).


    "Unlike investment in traditional financial instruments like bonds or stocks, currency speculation does not in it self contribute positively to any economy".

    (Fact, while most financial instruments were designed to fulfill specific economical roles, currencies are - currencies.)


    "Rather it may have a destabilizing effect. For instance, while speculators or investors purchasing bonds perform an important economical role, currency speculators more or less gamble with a financial instrument (currencies - that is money) which was never created for this purpose".

    (Fact, as just a few cases has shown, National Bank of Sweden versus speculators, Soros versus Bank of England, and Soros versus Malaysia, to name a few of the most famous examples).


    "This may effect other market participants or trade negatively, and is why even many conservatives or free market proponents are opposed to currency speculation".

    (Fact. Just because a note is ABOUT politics, it doesn't mean that it is political itself, or that the writer or the article adhere to the viewpoint presented. It merely presents the fact that even many free market, pro-market, pro-capitalism policymakers dispise currency speculation).


    I speculate in currencies myself, but I still feel that this topic should be covered objectively, and fact is, currency speculation IS considered controversial by many.


    Fxman 13:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


    [edit] Speculation section rewrite and name change

    I did a rewrite of the Speculation section, and placed the sections "Hedge Funds" and "Individual currency speculators" in a more logical and eye friendly order. It looked bad. Also, I changed "Controversy" to "Speculators and controversy" as this is more accurate.

    Fxman 14:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


    I think we just overlapped our edits on this page and the main page. (mine here disappeared). I hope my main page entry helps calm down rather than fire up the controversy controversy.

    Smallbones 14:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


    [edit] Removed political discussion

    Several views on speculation have been presented. The article should be about facts, it should not serve as a forum for political discussions. Economists agree that speculation indeed does not contribute positively to an economy. The argument that speculation would benefit anyone but the speculators is political - it is not economical. Disputing the views of Mahathir Mohamad on the ground that he was responsible for the collapse of the Ringgit, and not the speculators, is rather far-fetched although it may be used as a political argument for defending the speculators. Mahathir Mohamad did not force the speculators to take positions in the Ringgit.

    Source for "Economists agree that speculation indeed does not contribute positively to an economy." please. Ultramarine 15:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
    On the Series 3 examination,has as a correct answer - Speculation adds liquidity and creates a more efficient market place. This exam is administered by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). The National Futures Association (NFA) generally requires an individual to successfully complete the Series 3 in order to be qualified to sell commodities or futures contracts.
    Please sign comments with 4 tildas. While I agree that this might happen (addition of liquidity), I wouldn't bet my house on what the NFA exam says! The original question above seems mute now. Smallbones 07:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Swissy vs. Ozzie

    There's been some back and forth about "the top 5 most traded currencies" table. And now a blanking. Rather than blanking, if we could get some figures!! or quotes or some sort of credible evidence. My guess is that #5 is still Swissy, but if the Ozzies have a case why not make it here.

    For now I've put them in as "tied" at 5-6 and changed the title to "the top 6 most traded currencies."

    BTW, currencies are never capitalized in standard American English, except at the start of a sentence. I don't see any reason for them to be capitalized in a table.

    [edit] Recent errors

    I reverted a number of small changes the most important of which was saying that the minimum trade size is 100,000 currency units. I'd think you'd find this pretty hard to do in the bank market. Maybe not very hard for GBP, but certainly for yen! $1,000,000 is a pretty standard amount - though people do occasionally go lower. Of course if you can find any documentation of the lower amount (and it distinguishes between pounds and yen!)...

    The original "no inside trading" paragraph seemed a lot better than the newer version. What do you mean by "improper manipulation?" Does this mean that there is proper manipulation?

    Smallbones 14:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

    Why state such misinformed stuff? I'm trading (as well as thousands of others) currencies with a market maker (****) since 2001, where the smallest tradeable size is 1 (ONE) unit - where generally 1,000 units represent 1 USD (no leverage).

    guw 23:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

    I think we need to watch out for these guys who are just pushing retail forex trading. I've taken out the name of the broker he says he uses. If there is any broker in the world that will accept an order for $0.001, I'll eat my hat!

    Smallbones 10:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Arbolitos

    I come here for help on the topic of illegal exchange of money (a sort of black market). I want to write an article about the emergence of illegal money changers in Argentina in the 1990s. These people trade dollars for Argentine pesos and speculate on that. They conduct their operations in the streets of the large cities' financial centers, simply standing there and shouting Cambio! ("exchange") at random. The press termed them arbolitos ("little trees") by an association of dollars with green leaves. Is there another article, or good sources, that cover the general topic of "black" money changing? --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 23:10, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Questionable Disclaimer

    Seems to me the following comment is inaccurate as least the way I read the the Commodities Futures Trading Commission's "Advisory on Foreign Currency" dated 2/05/01 which states that it is "unlawful to offer foreign currency futures and option contracts to retail customers unless the offeror is a regulated financial entity." Why the disclaimer?

    None of the above discussion should be interpreted as saying that all unregistered forex retail brokers are unethical or criminal.

    Mcduffodonnell01 16:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

    Thanks for bringing this up. I think I originally put it in, in its present form (with some prompting) and have defended it against minor changes. It is indeed a debatable issue, but ultimately a securities lawyer with experience in FX and futures might have to be brought in to make a "precise" call. I figure we should err on the side of not calling anybody a crook, and not offer legal advice.
    The issue as I see it: The CFTC wants to prevent forex scams in the US, but the FX market is world-wide and they don't want to be put into the position of regulating banks around the world (e.g. after the NY office of a Japanese bank, "passes the book" of positions to Japan and then to London). So the law as written doesn't force them to register everybody in the US who trades FX futures or forwards (very close instruments). The dealer has to be regulated "by somebody," e.g. by the Fed, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, etc. "Registered" doesn't necessarily come in to it. "Regulated" does (by somebody!). For all the miscellaneous dealers who don't seem to be regulated by anybody else, the CFTC seems to want them to register with the NFA (a self-regulatory body) and be indirectly regulated by the CFTC. In short, I think you can drive a fleet of trucks through the loopholes in this "regulation" requirement.
    It does pain me not to be able to tell people - "these guys are ok, but these guys are not" but that call is beyond me. However, I'd like there to be some direct language in the retail section (and in the forex scams article), simply because I think there are a lot of unethical retail brokers out there, and they seem to have targeted this page, from time to time, as a place to recruit customers with their linkspam. If there are any wikipedia policies that apply here that I've missed, please let me know, but I think this is extremely delicate. Thanks again, Smallbones 18:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
    Don't mean to harp. Perhaps a clarification would be in order, something that would cite CFTC's advisory regarding forex dealings in the United States. The way it reads right now, readers may come away with the idea that the legality of unregistered dealers is a universal debate. It clearly isn't at least in the US. Mcduffodonnell01 18:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] New Link

    There have been innumerable ads for commercial retail forex brokers added to this article which seems to be completely against wikipedia policy. The current links may be pared down a little too much, but the above is a good reason for erring on the side of being conservative. So the "Non Profit Forex Training Society" link which seems to claim that it is offering free historical data would probably fit in - if in fact it is a good link. However, all that I can get is an "Entry" page where the links to the "goodies" don't work. If it doesn't turn out to be what it claims to be - I'll definitely remove it. Smallbones

    -- Reply: Having problems with the host. Will get the historical documents on soon.

    [edit] Forex mechanics

    There is zero information of internal mechanics behind forex quotes.

    How they are set? Who decides that GBPUSD will be X not Y at time T?

    Are quotes set as highest/lowest bid/ask of whole market? Or there is a smart guy in bunker which enters it every 5 seconds on his numpad?

    I want to know path of this number from who creates it till my laptop's screen. And i can't find any info on web.

    Maybe wikipedia helps me?

    82.193.139.2 13:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC) Ivan Tikhonov

    This depends on where you are getting your quotes from! If you are relying on retail brokers, it seems that it might come from just about anywhere! If you are asking about how the prices are determined for the overall market, that's quite a topic, but the simple mechanics are fairly clear. A bank trader will enter his bid and ask quotes on Reuters, EBS, etc. and those firms that have these services will be able to see the bids and offers. See the 4-5 paragraphs starting with "The ten largest traders..."
    But if you are asking about retail brokers, there really is no satisfactory answer. If they give you a quote and you believe them, then that's all there is to it.
    Market demand drives the price, the retail brokers have thier own quotes and spreads which are usually not much different from other brokers. Occasionally it is adjusted manually by banks, especially when the Non-Farm Payroll numbers are released by the Federal Reserve. --Old Guard 20:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Spam

    I haven't been back in a while but I noticed two things. First, someone posted the name of a non-dealing desk broker. There are only four or five in existence from what I can gather so the mention of one to the exclusion of all others would be a clear commercial endorsement so I deleted it. Second (and I didn't take time to check who deleted it and for what reason) there was a reference to stop hunting that has been removed. Perhaps the reference belongs on the forex scams page but it does provide some valuable perspective. I'll go with the group's judgement on this. Reference was made to a non-commercial blog which I won't cite here. Mcduffodonnell01

    [edit] Call out for help with Forex teachers!

    Hi all! I call on all fellow Wikipedians to help me out to improve and expand the article Forex teachers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forex_teachers), so it won't be nominated for deletion. I have invested time and effort in the research and writing of this article, it would be a pity if it would be deleted. Please help me out, all help is appreciated. Thank you so much for your help, Pete8 19:32, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


    James Dicks who is featured in that article is a well known scam artist.

    Smallbones 16:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Turnover graphic

    I think the graphic on Turnover is ok - and it probably fits in with the BIS copyright waivers EXCEPT where is that 2007 estimate from - I'm pretty sure it's not from the BIS. So it is a completely unknown entity masquerading as a fact. Can you make your own graphic with the BIS data? In any case the graphic should be removed unless the estimate can be explained. Smallbones 16:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

    I contacted understandmarket.com. They claim that "polinomial extrapolation of the smoothed turnover data series" was used to obtain the value for 2007. I can't estimate the accuracy of their research, but I suppose that the method is quite good. In any case, I've added a simplified comment to the article. Notgoogle 18:07 GMT, 19 September 2006

    [edit] Lets fix up the article guys :)

    Hi guys lets start adding more references and putting into the correct format so we can get this article to FA quality. We need to add references in the correct manner similar to what we have been doing on the backgammon article. The current reference listed on this article is not linked to any particular part of the text anyone knows to which part it belongs and what was taken out of this references and inserted into the article? We also need to take out the external links from within the article and add them as references instead of links within the article Davidoff 11:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

    The Millman reference refers to the paragraph 2 paragraphs above "Reference" so it seemed silly to ... but, yes let's fix up the references in the standard way. Can you give a reference for the standard way of referencing (seriously). Smallbones 11:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
    just doing it now have a look at what comes out :) the way you do is like this: < ref name="ref-name" >[URL Title of Article] Name of business or site Retrieved on Month and Day , year .< /ref > hope that makes it clear again i refer you to the backgammon article or any FA on wikipedia it shows what style to use. in general it is important to be consistent and we should be fine :) have a look at the code on the forex article to see how the references are addedDavidoff 11:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
    I would also like to add more information about forex trading, which is part of the foreign exchange market and it redirect to this article. So i suggest we either create another article about Currency trading or Forex trading or we add this information to this article. On a side note we also need to add more references if we want this article to be a Wikipedia:Featured articles as well as expand it to cover more of the aspects of forex in general. Davidoff 12:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] New Sections

    I made some minor changes and left others for later and removed 1 section for later work.

    Minor, e.g. Forex is only capitalized at the start of a sentence unless you are German.

    Needs work: the whole history section is a good idea, but lacks sources and tends to repeat (or even contradict) material in other places. How much is Bretton Woods relevant to what happens today? Maybe some, but mostly a reference to BW would suffice. BTW the forex market has existed for as long as there have been diferent currencies - even during the BW period. But at some times the instituional or legal arrangements made the level of trading very low.

    Removed for later work: Forex vs. Stocks. First question to answer here is why this is relevant, e.g. why not Forex vs. Bonds as well, or Forex vs. Real Estate (no - I don't suggest that those go in!). Then sources, check the facts and please edit for length! I hope I'm not being too demanding here. Smallbones 14:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

    Well with respect to the history section you are right we need to cite stuff, the info is mainly out of my own research in various places mostly brain :)
    About sections like Forex vs. Stocks, Forex vs. Bonds, etc. I thought about doing those as well but I wanted to hear thoughts before I put in the hours...
    You are not too demanding, we all have the same goal here, which is making this better :) Davidoff 15:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Milton Friedman views

    What's the source of that section?Which book or article he said that?

    [edit] Forex

    Forex redirects here, but Forex is also a Swedish bank, specialising in currency exchange. [1] (Stefan2 13:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC))

    It is also a brand of condom (forex that is). The bank took its name from the market, so there doesn't seem to be anything to do about it. Smallbones 13:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
    P.S. There's also a Trojan Bank

    [edit] Why do you keep reverting it to an old edition

    My additions were all factual and I feel, very helpful for someone trying to understand the Forex market. If you want to change it please let me understand why

    [edit] Problems with e.g. history section

    There were many problems with several new sections that seem to be pushing retail forex trading. 1) There were two sections on retail forex, 2)retail forex is a minute part of the market (about 2%) so it doesn't deserve 1/3 of the space, 3) the sections were all sloppy, uncited and non-factual.

    As an example of factual mistakes, please look at the FIRST sentence in the History section, "The forex market is a cash inter-bank or inter-dealer market, which was established in 1971 when floating exchange rates began to appear."

    This is just plain wrong - the Forex market has been around as long as there have been different currencies. Milton Friedman complained in the late 1960's in a Newsweek article that he was unable, as a retail speculator, to trade in this market. So what you probably mean is that in the early 1970s retail speculators were first allowed in this market, or perhaps you mean that the volume of trade increased greatly about this time. So please check your facts first, say what you mean, and leave out all the superfluous retail forex stuff. (and sign your comments with 4 tildas) Smallbones 07:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    if you check that factual error you are refering to was not part of my edit, I did not write that nor do I defend it

    [edit] Added a new page

    I agree that retail forex should not be as big as it was, and I appologize for that. This is a very important issue however as there are more people directly affected by retail forex than commodity trading or hedge fund trading of forex. Even though it is such small size many people have tried or will try it. I created a new page and moved all the retail forex content there. Though I have lots of experience in retail forex, and consider myself very unbiased, I am new to wiki and i'm sure my formatting is poor. I would appreciate some help. About the bloomberg quote in the beginning, it seems like an important thing to add becuase how large the market is, and how fast it is growing is a very interesting fact. Drewwiki 09:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)Drewwiki

    I'm glad to see you added a "Transaction cost" section, most readers aren't aware of it, and will appreciate that. should incorporate regulatory explainations / warnings or absence of oversight like the tradional futures markets. Nice article, probably attract linkspammers because its a search key word, just keep an eye out Hu12 18:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Randomly adding specific retail forex brokers

    Please do not randomly add the names of retail forex brokers, that is considered an advertisement

    [edit] Wording consistency

    Try to be consistent on wording throughout the article. For instance, either "forex" or "Forex" should be used consistently in the article; not doing so makes the article look sloppy. I chose "forex" (because it was used in the introductory sentence of the article) and corrected all instances of "Forex" (at least all that I could find). Please try to maintain this consistency. Julesd 16:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] David Krutz and his thoughts

    "According to David Krutz from the Financial Times website (Published: October 9 2006 20:48) "The foreign exchange market will have doubled in size in just three years next year, thanks to increased participation by fund managers and pension funds, says research out on Monday". TowerGroup, a financial services research consultancy, said it expected total global average daily volumes on the FX market to exceed $3,000bn in 2007. FX volumes, which rose from $1,770bn in 2004 to $2,000bn in 2005, were set to rise to $2,600bn in 2006 and $3,600bn for 2007, as foreign exchange became accepted as an asset class in its own right according to TowerGroup"

    Guys, I suggest to wait for the 2007 BIS study and speak about the facts. I'll remove this info, nevertheless it is still available here, in the Discussion section.

    [edit] Currency Conversion

    Having read thru the main article, I cannot find an explanation on how one currency is actually converted into another, the process etc. I understand the trading part, but how do dollars actually get converted into euros and vice versa? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.241.18.23 (talk) 22:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

    You give your dollars to someone. The recepient gives you an amount of euros in return, and keeps the dollars. Dividing the amount of dollars with the amount of euros gives you the exchange rate in $/€ for that exchange. Hopefully, you'll get a fair amount of euros. (212.247.11.155 (talk) 21:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC))

    [edit] Market participants

    Hu12 wants to delete the list of major Banks/Forex traders from the article. This information is sourced and was in place for many months. Hu12 is refering to WP:NOT to justify its deletion.

    I disagree strongly. This information is very important and does not fall under WP:NOT. Only facts have been reported and they are material. There is no POV, ads or unsourced claims. SSZ 21:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Market Segments

    • Direct Interdealer trading such as D2000-1
    • Brokered interdealer trading such as D2000-2, D3000 & EBS
    • Customer Dealer trading
    • Customer-Customer trading especailly with internet trading such as CMC Markets(1996.5), IFX Markets(1999), MatchbookFX(1999.9 - 2000),

    HotSpotFX(2001.2), OANDA's FXTrade(2001.3), CTN Systems' ChoiceFX, etc.

    Jackzhp (talk) 02:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

    Empty links added to an article do not add content or meaning, but perhaps the blue links could be added to the "See also" section, where it appears EBS is already listed (but needs to be linked to Electronic Broking Services rather that to a disambiguation page.--Hu12 (talk) 03:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
    Are you insane? while what I added is about market segments, you are talking about empty links. have you tried to click on EBS?
    please don't remove the whole section. This section is really relevent for people to understand the foreign exchange market. Please edit it, rather than delete it. Jackzhp (talk) 01:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
    First you changed your first post[2]. second, I've replied to your comment on my talk page and above re EBS --Hu12 (talk) 02:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
    feel free to change it. to the point please. the point is whether such a section is meaningful. Jackzhp (talk) 17:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] "By far the largest market in the world"

    Somebody wants to delete this and put "not strictly true" in the lead. There's plenty of info a couple of paragraphs down that strongly supports this. On the other hand, any statement this strong could be knocked down a peg or two on technical grounds. Why not just explain what your technical grounds are lower down, rather than clogging up the led?

    Smallbones (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


    [edit] Classic external links

    There were four noncommerical external links up to about a month ago. I've reinserted them. Together with a do not spam message, and some notable work from User:Hu12 they have helped keep out tons of spam from this article. Somebody removed all but one. I won't speculate on their motives, but if you want to change the external links (other than removing spam when it shows up), please discuss it here. Smallbones (talk) 22:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

    -- Good work. I do think we should add a link to a currency converter/calculator, since I believe many users visiting this page are looking for one (the current 4 links only provide rates). I suggest http://www.forexflower.com since it is simple and uncluttered of commercial ads. 83.183.214.225 (talk) 09:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

    -- I agree. If nobody have any complaints, I will add the link proposed above (http://www.forexflower.com).

    -- Added now. --Miltooon (talk) 22:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

    -- How about to add some forex blogs? I'm a Forex trader and I think forex blogs have a big influence over the FX community. Here is a small list of some I use: http://www.forexblogviews.blogspot.com/ http://thenewstraderfx.blogspot.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.125.199.77 (talk) 08:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


    Since rates are provided, this is unnecessary. Readers are all on computers, so multiplication or division is just aa couple of keystrokes away. I've removed the link. Smallbones (talk) 11:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Retail FX market: Data from current market survey

    I added current updated information on the retail fx market. I took out old information "According to CNN, one retail broker estimates retail volume at $25–50 billion daily, which is about 2% of the whole market." and replaced it with: "May 2008 data suggests the retail market accounts for $20 trillion in annual flow to the banks, or around £80 billion a day. "

    This has been removed by Hu12 who said it was spam, (probably because I said how many respondents there were to the survey, he probably thought I was bigging it up, but what I meant by adding this information was to communicate that it's the largest survey of its type globally, and to demonstrate how recent the data was I put in the date).

    When I visited his page to leave a message via 'talk' it said he is on a wikibreak and that his talk page messages won't receive a response. How am I meant to contest this deletion?

    Thank you kindly all Erica j (talk) 14:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC) (PS..here's the url for the different versions: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Foreign_exchange_market&diff=218431981&oldid=218423105)

    Looks fairly inaccurate and unreliable to me (and according to its author). The number he comes up with, after going from $/years to pounds/day to $/day, is still about 5%, which still makes it a minor part of the market. i.e. it's inaccurate, confusing and doesn't say anything new. Let's leave it out. Smallbones (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)