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FX: The Foreign Exchange Market

The foreign exchange market is the biggest financial market in the world. Every day, transactions worth about 3.98 trillion dollars are carried out within the market. The major aim of introducing the foreign exchange market is to facilitate international trade by enabling businesses to perform transactions outside their local currency. The market operates round the clock from Monday through Friday.
In the foreign exchange market today, a trader can purchase some amount of international currencies by paying with a different currency. This type of foreign exchange market started to develop in the 1970s, which was about thirty years after foreign exchange was introduced. Some important features about the FX market include the following:
1. It has a very large number of daily participants. This makes its liquidity one of the highest in the world.
2. Participants come from several countries in the world.
3. The market is open from 22:00 GMT on Sunday to 20:00 GMT on Friday.
4. Exchange rates are affected by a number of factors.

Market Size and Liquidity

Liquidity in the forex market is the highest among other financial markets in the world. The market comprises central banks, currency speculators, organizations, governments, retail investors and international investors. Over the years, the size of the FX market has been constantly increasing. In 2010, The Triennial Survey by the Bank of International Settlements reported that the average daily transaction in the US for the month of April was $3.98 trillion. This was much greater than the $1.7 trillion recorded in 1998.
The UK had about 36.7% of the traders in the market to make it the highest contributor in foreign exchange trading. Second on the list was USA, which had about 17.9% traders while Japan was third with 6.2% of the total exchangers from the country.

Market Participants

There are three types of participants in the foreign exchange market. These are: central banks, global funds, retail clients (or individual retailers) and corporations. The commercial and investment banks belong to the group known as “interbank” market. The interbank market is the largest market that operates in the foreign exchange market. Corporations, central banks and global funds also operate at this level. Being the highest traders in the market, participants in the interbank level are given the best rates. This level constitutes about seventy five percent of the total volume available each day.
The role of the central bank in the forex market is to control the supply of their country’s currency. Hence, they are not required to speculate. Some of the major roles it performs include fixing overnight lending rates, purchasing and selling government securities to moderate the supply of money and determining interest rate of their currency by buying or selling them in the open market.

Trading Characteristics

Currencies that are often traded include the United States dollar, Euro, Japanese Yen, Pound Sterling, Australian dollar, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Swedish krona, New Zealand dollar, South Korean won, Singapore dollar, Norwegian krone, Mexican peso and Indian rupee. There is no regulation for the traders on the kind of currencies to trade since this is an over-the-counter market. However, there are different market places where the participants can trade on the different currencies.
Exchange rates among currencies are affected by the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), inflation, interest rates and balance of trade. News about the foreign exchange market is given to the public on scheduled periods so that every trader involved gets access to it at the same time. However, the big banks are given higher priority by letting them see the operations of their customers.

Determinants of FX rates

For countries operating on the floating exchange rate regime, the exchange rates of their currencies can be determined by the following theories:
1.International Parity Conditions: These include theories such as relative purchasing power parity, interest rate parity, domestic fisher effect and international fisher effect. Although these theories work to actually determine FX rates, they can also falter because they are formed on assumptions that are not always true.
2.Balance of payment model: This is concerned with the exchange of goods and services without considering the effect of the flow of money between and among nations.

It is not possible to predict FX rates within long time frames with these theories. The best that can be done with these is predicting future prices that can occur within a few days. FX rates cannot be judged on a single factor but rather by combining several factors in economics, politics and market psychology.

Financial Instruments

Financial instruments in the FX market include spot, forward and swap.

Spot

A spot transaction lasts for two days except when currencies such as the US dollar, Canadian dollar, Euro, Turkish Lira and Russian ruble are traded. In these cases, transactions are completed on the next business day. Normally, there is no interest involved in this transaction since it is just a direct exchange.

Forward

Forward transaction is an effective way of reducing risks in the FX market. With this, traders do not exchange money until when an agreed exchange rate between currencies is actualized. This may happen in one day, several months or years.

Swap

In swap, two traders agree to make a transaction that will be reversed in the future. Since this is not a standard operation, there is no exchange created for this.

Speculation

Currency speculation is a subject that attracts several views as a result of its positive and negative effects. While some believe that this devalues currencies, other scholars such as Milton Friedman believe that this acts as a stabilizer in the system by transferring risks from those who do not want them to those who need them. Besides, speculation also makes the FX market open to all. Speculation is done by individual traders and large hedge funds. Since individual traders do not invest so much money into this, they are normally regarded as destabilizers of the system.

Risk Aversion

Risk aversion is a trading pattern that results when unfavorable conditions are bound to occur. This is caused by the liquidation of risky assets and diverting the funds into safer assets. In the foreign exchange market, traders liquidate the funds they envisage potential risks and divert them into more secure ones like the US dollar. However, it is being observed that most traders use these more secure currencies because of fear rather than the results shown on economic statistics. For example, during the global economic meltdown of 2008, the US dollar was unaffected while other currencies depreciated. The success of the US dollar was achieved despite the similar negative results caused by the crisis in the United States.