What is Forex?

The Foreign Exchange market, also referred to as the "FOREX" or "Forex" or "Retail forex" or “FX” or "Spot FX" or just "Spot" is the largest financial market in the world, with a volume of over US$3 trillion a day. The foreign exchange (currency or forex or FX) market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. It is by far the largest financial market in the world, and includes trading between large banks,central banks, currency speculators, multinational corporations, governments, and other financial markets and institutions.

If you compare that to the $25 billion a day volume that the New York Stock Exchange trades, you can easily see how large the Foreign Exchange really is. It is more than three times the total amount of the stocks and futures markets combined!