About Me

Monday, May 19, 2008

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Forex
The foreign exchange (also known as "forex" or "FX") market is the place where currencies are traded. The overall forex market is the largest, most liquid market in the world with an average traded value that exceeds $1.9 trillion per day and includes all of the currencies in the world.Investopedia Says:There is no central marketplace for currency exchange, rather, trade is conducted over-the-counter. The forex market is open 24 hours a day, five days a week, with currencies being traded worldwide among the major financial centers of London, New York, Tokyo, Zürich, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Sydney - spanning most time zones.The forex is the largest market in the world in terms of the total cash value traded, and any person, firm, or country may participate in this market.

Currency
currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and/or services. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value. A currency is the dominant medium of exchange. To facilitate trade between currency zones, there are exchange rates, which are the prices at which currencies (and the goods and services of individual currency zones) can be exchanged against each other. Currencies can be classified as either floating currencies or fixed currencies based on their exchange rate regime. In common usage, currency sometimes refers to only paper money, as in coins and currency, but this is misleading. Coins and paper money are both forms of currency.In most cases, each country has monopoly control over the supply and production of its own currency. Member countries of the European Union's Economic and Monetary Union are a notable exception to this rule, as they have ceded control of monetary policy to the European Central Bank.In cases where a country does have control of its own currency, that control is exercised either by a central bank or by a Ministry of Finance. In either case, the institution that has control of monetary policy is referred to as the monetary authority. Monetary authorities have varying degrees of autonomy from the governments that create them. In the United States, the Federal Reserve System operates without direct interference from the legislative or executive branches. It is important to note that a monetary authority is created and supported by its sponsoring government, so independence can be reduced or revoked by the legislative or executive authority that creates it. However, in practical terms, the revocation of authority is not likely. In almost all Western countries, the monetary authority is largely independent from the government.Several countries can use the same name, each for their own currency (e.g. Canadian dollars and United States dollars), several countries can use the same currency (e.g. the euro), or a country can declare the currency of another country to be legal tender. For example, Panama and El Salvador have declared U.S. currency to be legal tender, and from 1791-1857, Spanish silver coins were legal tender in the United States. At various times countries have either re-stamped foreign coins, or used currency board issuing one note of currency for each note of a foreign government held, as Ecuador currently does.Each currency typically has one fractional currency, often valued at 1⁄100 of the main currency: 100 cents = 1 dollar, 100 centimes = 1 franc, 100 pence = 1 pound. Units of 1⁄10 or 1⁄1000 are also common, but some currencies do not have any smaller units. Mauritania and Madagascar are the only remaining countries that do not use the decimal system; instead, the Mauritanian ouguiya is divided into 5 khoums, while the Malagasy ariary is divided into 5 iraimbilanja. However, due to inflation, both fractional units have in practice fallen into disuse