What is Forex?

Hello everyone 👋

We are excited to welcome you to our class! 🎉
Please note that the official class time will run from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM WAT. However, don’t worry if you can’t join exactly at that time, the materials will always be available, so you can read and learn at your own convenience. ✅

This will be an interactive class, so feel free to ask questions, share your thoughts, and engage actively. The more you participate, the more value you’ll gain. 🚀

Let’s make this a fun and impactful learning experience together!

What is forex?

Forex, or foreign exchange (FX), is the global market where currencies are traded. If you think one currency will rise against another and you’re correct, you make a profit.

Everyday currency exchange, like swapping dollars for yen at an airport, is a simple example of how forex works. But unlike that small-scale use, most forex trading is done by banks, institutions, and traders for speculative purposes, not tourism or trade.

It’s the largest financial market in the world, with an average daily trading volume of about $7.5 trillion. However, only around $2 trillion is in the “spot market” (the part relevant to most traders), and retail traders like us make up only 3–5% of this.

Unlike stock markets, forex is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, moving through financial centers across the globe — from New Zealand and Asia to Europe and the U.S.

The simple answer is MONEY . Specifically, currencies.

In forex trading, when you buy, say, the Japanese yen, you are basically buying a “share” in the Japanese economy.


You are betting that the Japanese economy is doing well, and will even get better as time goes.
Once you sell those “shares” back to the market, hopefully, you will end up with a profit.

While there are potentially lots of currencies you can trade, as a new forex trader, you will probably start trading with the “major currencies“.

They’re called “major currencies” because they’re the most heavily traded currencies and represent some of the world’s largest economies.
Forex traders differ on what they consider as “major currencies”.
The uptight ones who probably got straight A’s and followed all the rules as children only consider USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, and CHF as major currencies.
Then they label AUD, NZD, and CAD as “commodity currencies“.
For us rebels, and to keep things simple, we just consider all eight currencies as the “majors”.

Private messaging is now accessible, you can now network with your fellow learners(all for free!!)

Major currencies, their codes and countries

Currency symbols always have three letters, where the first two letters identify the name of the country and the third letter identifies the name of that country’s currency, usually the first letter of the currency’s name.

These three letters are known as ISO 4217 Currency Codes.

Example:
USD
US- United States
D- Dollar

JPY
JP-Japan
Y-Yen

And many more…