Chapter 3

Who Trades Currencies? Meet the Players

In This Chapter

arrow Understanding where currency rates come from

arrow Stepping onto a trading floor

arrow Hedging and investing through the forex market

arrow Understanding that speculating is the name of the game

arrow Managing foreign currency reserves

The forex market is regularly referred to as the largest financial market in the world based on trading volumes. But this massive market was unknown and unavailable to most individual traders and investors until the early 2000s.

That leaves a lot of people in the dark when it comes to exactly what the currency market is: how it’s organized, who’s trading it, and why. In this chapter, we take a look at how the FX market is structured and who the major players are. Along the way, we clue you in to how they go about their business and what it means for the market overall.

If you believe that information is the lifeblood of financial market trading, which we certainly do, we think you’ll appreciate this guide to ...

Get Currency Trading For Dummies, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.