Читать книгу Foreign Exchange: The Complete Deal - James McDowell. Sharpe - Страница 35

The foreign exchange market is not a physical place. It operates on a global basis through a computer-linked group of banks whose function is to facilitate trading by providing buying and selling prices to the main participants (these are noted below). This is known as an over-the-counter (OTC) market. Banks are the intermediary between foreign exchange supply and demand. The interbank market is the wholesale market and this is where the banks trade with one another.

The development in communications and dealing technology has meant that there is a uniform price for a particular currency throughout the financial centres of the world. The main centres of trading are London and New York. Trading is continual from Sunday evening 20.00 GMT to Friday evening 22.00 GMT.

Historically, transactions would occur over the phone, telex or via brokers but now dealing platforms and electronic broking systems dominate, for example EBS. According to the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) Triennial central bank Survey 2010, the foreign exchange market turnover is about $4trn a day, which makes it the largest, most liquid financial market in the world.

These characteristics of the foreign exchange market – high liquidity, 24-hour trading and price fluctuation – are attractive to speculators and this explains why this market has become the largest in the world.