If you are not completely familiar with Forex trading and would like to learn Forex trading, this is the article for you.

The Foreign Exchange market, also referred to as "Forex" or "FX" for forex trading is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average turnover of well over 1 trillion dollars--30 times larger than the combined volume of all U.S. equity markets. "Foreign Exchange" is the literally the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. Currencies are traded in pairs, for example Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY). The most liquid of these currencies are called "the Majors" in forex trading and more than 85% of all daily transactions in this market. The Majors in Forex Trading are made up of the following:

• USD = US Dollar
• JPY = Japanese Yen
• EUR = Euro
• GBP = British Pound
• CHF = Swiss Franc
• CAD = Canadian Dollar
• AUD = Australian Dollar

One thing I like about the forex trading markets is that the 24 forex trading day includes 4 major market opens that offer the same volatility and liquidity found in the one-time-per day 9:30 a.m. EST stock market opening. First is the Japanese forex trading market opens at 8:00 pm EST, then the Eurozone forex trading market opens at 12:00 am EST, third is London forex trading market at 3:00 am EST, and bringing up the rear is the New York forex trading market open at 8:30 am EST. Although I generally stick to the New York forex trading open and sometimes the Japanese open, there are many forex trading traders I know who either trade all of the opens, or whose schedules are dictated by their work, which for some people can include odd hours. With the availability of these 4 openings, a trader can fit forex trading at least one of these times into any schedule.

The forex trading markets are also the deepest, most participated in markets in the world. Daily turnover equates to over $1.2 trillion, 16 times the volume of the NASDAQ and NYSE combined.

The forex trading markets are one of the most technical markets in the world, meaning they respond well to most technical analysis studies. It is not uncommon to see a 300 pip breakout move stop and change trend at a technical level to within 5 pips.

A trader also doesn't have to worry about contract rollovers in the forex trading market. It is possible to buy a few lots of the EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AND AUD/USD, place a stop and forget about it for months at a time. Forex trading dealers atomically roll your position from one day to the next for you as to prevent the event of delivery.

In addition, most Spot Forex trading dealers offer a negative balance protection guarantee which ensures that your account will never reach a position of negative equity, which can happen in both the stock market for traders who are maxed out on margin as well as the futures market. There is an interesting way to take advantage of this. A person can open up forex trading accounts at different dealers and deposit in a small portion of their overall trading capital. They can go long a currency in one account, and short the same currency in another account, and just leave it alone, with no stops or targets. While the two positions are open they will offset each other equally, so it's a perfect hedge. If the currency then gets into a prolonged move, one of the accounts will get closed when the account equity gets to zero. At this point the trader is still breakeven on the trade because the losses in one account are offset by gains in another account. If the currency then continues to trend in the open account, the trader benefits from already being "in the move." I don't do this personally, but a few traders I know have done this and have had instances where accounts in the neighborhood of $20,000 have turned into accounts in the neighborhood of $400,000 on the backs of a couple of great moves. The key is they take the positions and literally forget about them for 6 months. The currency just has to trend one way or the other. This obviously involves some luck, and I wouldn't call it a "core strategy of any wise retirement plan."

The biggest complaint I've heard people say about forex trading is the forex trading dealers taking the other side of your trade. I usually hear this from people who have overtraded their account and have lost all of their money. This is really true in any market--somebody is always taking the other side of your trade. In my experience with forex trading, however, it is the high frequency day traders who don't last. On the other hand, the traders who place smaller positions and let them work out over the course of a few days to a few weeks, or longer, do well. As in any trade, market makers can mess with a position in the very short term, but over the course of a swing trade they have no power. When George Soros was short the British Pound and was told that the British Government had allocated the equivalent of 20 billion US dollars to stabilize their currency, he shrugged and said, "That will help them for 30 minutes. Then what are they going to do?" He made over a billion dollars on that trade.