The FOREX market..

The FOREX market is unique, in the UK there is no central exchange, we trade via the inter bank market. With more and more private individuals taking up margin trading and new forex brokers setting up, I can only see the market grow in the near future .

• There is less to consider when trading the forex markets, there are only a number of variables that affect the pricing.
• Main advantages include
• Forex Market allows 24 hour trading
• Greater leverage — with most brokers offering 100 — 1,
• Less starting capital required,
• More Liquidity — day trading has to have enough volume to make it worth our while. The currency market is more liquid than all the world stock markets put together. Currencies are always in action,
• Free trading systems
• Better for shorting — There are artificial controls built into the market to prevent it from going down too fast. The reason is that we live in a biased world that likes to see things go up instead of down. One of these artificial contraptions is the "uptick rule," which comes into play when shorting stocks, making it more difficult to sell a stock short than to buy it. This is unheard of in the currency market. Selling currencies short while day trading is just as easy as buying them.

With all these advantages, traders are finding it hard not to trade currencies, online trading volumes across all products is increasing at a substantial rate, however forex trading, predominantly amongst retail investors is becoming very popular.

Technical Analysis has come a long way , more and more forex provides now have partnerships with firms who provide analysis. However the banks still have an advantage, the markets are still not under perfectly competitive economic model. The banks will always have access to information that is not readily available, IS forex currently sources its information from a number of banks to fill this gap.