Foreign Exchange Markets

The FX market maker is a bank or brokerage company that stands ready, every second of the trading day with a firm bid and ask price. This is good for the investor because when the investor chooses to buy and sell a pair of currencies, the market maker will purchase from and sell to the investor, even if they do not have a buyer and seller lined up. In doing so, they are literally “making a market” for the currencies.

Forex market makers ensure that the market is always functional and that the currencies in it will always fetch the market rate.

Typical FX market makers include Gain Capital, CMS Forex, Forex Capital Markets (FXCM), and Global Forex Trading, all of which are regulated by the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of the USA. Another prominent forex market maker is Saxo Bank, which is regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of Denmark.

The investor in the currency market

Once an order is placed with a broker, the trade is executed within seconds. It is, of course, not as easy as that.

Whenever a pair of currencies is bought or sold, there must be someone at the other end of the transaction.
It is very unlikely that the investor will always find someone who is interested in buying and selling the same two currencies at the same amount, and at the same time.

Hence, the question remains, “How is it possible that the FX investor can buy or sell at any time?” This is where the FX market makers come in.

Oil prices higher in Asian trade

Crude prices rose in Asian trade on Wednesday on stronger energy demand fuelled by the need for heating fuel during the northern hemisphere winter.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, turned higher in afternoon trade, rising 23 cents to 79.10 US dollars a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for February delivery was up 36 cents to 78.00 dollars.

A rising US dollar had capped gains during morning trade as a stronger greenback makes dollar-priced oil more expensive.

Analysts said the oil market was expected to take a further lead from the weekly US Department of Energy report on the country's stockpiles due for release later Wednesday.

The market is expecting a drop in inventories because of higher demand for heating fuel during the northern hemisphere's winter and a rebound in the US economy, a key engine for global growth

What is Leverage?

Leverage is simply a way to make you invested capital work harder.

For example, if you have $1,000 to invest and you have a leverage of 100:1 you have 100 x $1,000 or $100,000 you can invest.

So how do you get this leverage?

One simple way to get leverage is to open a FX trading account ( don’t worry if you know nothing about forex we will come that in a minute), a FX broker will grant normally up
to 100:1 as standard, as soon as you open an account.

Of course leverage can work for or against you, so must be able to run profits and cut losses quickly and use strict risk control.