Sunday, October 25, 2009

Spot Forex Market (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

There is a select club that really rules the spot forex market. These big banks make an exclusive club where most trading activities take place. This club is known as the Interbank Market. The worlds big banks are the main players in the spot forex market.

The wealthier you are and the more money you have or are bale to get credit for, the more chances you have of accessing this big boys club. Down the hierarchy in the spot forex market are the smaller banks, big multinational companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors or speculators and the retail forex brokers.

The independent retail traders lie at the bottom of the market structure. These big players conduct currency transactions in the interbank market if they have large capital and have credit standing with the large banks.

So there is no central exchange in the spot forex market to set the prices. Then who sets the currency prices? The retail forex trades trade through their forex brokers. They generally trade in much smaller lot sizes. Central banks are also occasionally involved in currency transactions.

Market makers make the bid and ask prices based on the currency movements that they anticipate will take place. Without a central exchange, the currency prices are set by the market makers.

Many banks have professional traders solely dedicated to trading forex for speculation. Largest banks are the major market makers and they handle billions of dollars worth of forex transactions on behalf of their clients like the other institutions and companies and also for themselves.

This big money laden network is knows as the interbank market. Interbank market is where large banks deal with one another. The resulting massive flow of money handled by these big banks is what primarily drives the currency markets.

The transactions carried out by these big banks like the Citigroup, Barclays, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch etc amounts to the greatest bulk of the total daily forex volume. Most of the trading activity takes place in the interbank market.

The banks deal directly with one another through the electronic brokering platforms like the Electronic Brokering Services (EBS) or Reuters Dealing 3000 Matching. These brokering services get the best available rates for the various currency pairs.

The banks establish specific credit lines with one another in order to deal with one another in the forex market as there is no exchange to serve as each banks counterparty. These brokering systems match buying and selling requests from the bank dealers. Between these two competitors they connect at least 1000 banks together.

Smaller banks that also trade forex also get access to these brokering platforms. Next large companies come. As the main market makers, these big banks constantly quote bid and offer prices to one another thereby making the market. - 23309

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An Overview On How To Invest For Retirement

By Chad I. Lee

Learning how to invest for retirement is an important aspect of securing your financial future. As you move through your working life, you need to be confident that you have made the right investment decisions to be able to fund the years when you are enjoying your well-earned break.

You need to regularly check that your investments are providing you with the retirement funds you will need, and so make changes to your investment plan occasionally. Your investment strategies will be different at different times in your life. It is a good idea to regularly seek advice from a qualified financial planner, because they are up to date with all the relevant investment and taxation information and can help you decide on relevant strategies.

There are several options for investing for retirement and we can't go through everything in this space. However, we will give you some basic information to help you get started with considering how to invest for retirement.

Where do you start with investing for your retirement? Good question, but the answer is that it doesn't so much matter where you start, but that you DO actually start. Too many people put off starting to invest for their retirement and lose valuable growth of their money. Voluntary deposits into a retirement fund are the usual place to start, as many employers carry employer-matching programs, 401K and 403B. After this, a Roth IRA is a good plan to set up because they are a tax-free investment opportunity for the growth of your assets.

Many workers also take out whole life insurance, both as a retirement investment strategy and as protection for their dependants. This is particularly important when you have children, so that their lives are disrupted as little as possible if something happened to you, the bread-winner. Later on, if you don't think you need the life insurance, you can cash it in as a valuable source of retirement income.

Retirement investment strategies differ for a young member of the workforce and someone closer to retirement age. It makes more sense for an older worker to practise safe, or conservative, investing. These may include money markets, government or corporate bonds and fixed income investments. The main advantage in safe investments is the relative protection of your principal and the reduced risk to the value of your portfolio. The disadvantage is less return on your investment and a higher inflation risk.

Other investment options include stocks, a good method of beating inflation; mutual funds, which invests your money, and that of other investors, as pools of money in stocks, bonds or both of these; bonds, which can be private or government owned, and tend to be a stable investment; ETF or an exchange traded fund, similar to a mutual fund but are often a cheaper option; and cash, which is a safe option but easily eroded by inflation. - 23309

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