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You are buying and selling money. In the forex market, think of money as a commodity. You are buying a currency hoping that its value will increase, and if you are selling that it will decrease. Like any other commodity, the price of currencies is displayed in quotes in the spot market. They are traded in currency pairs. Although you are buying another country’s currency, you are not buying anything ‘physical’. Thus no physical exchange of money ever takes place. This can be confusing, but think of it like buying shares of a publicly traded company where everything is done electronically inside your trading account. But unlike the stock market, the forex market doesn’t have a central exchange like the New York Stock Exchange for instance. Instead the forex market is an interbank market, which means it’s all connected together in a network of banks and institutions.

In general, how much money you make will depend on what currencies you trade, what leverage you use, and how much capital you have.

A pip is a very small measure of change in a currency pair in the forex market. It can be measured in terms of the quote or in terms of the underlying currency. A pip is a standardized unit and is the smallest amount by which a currency quote can change, which is usually $0.0001 for U.S.-dollar related currency pairs, which is more commonly referred to as 1/100th of 1%, or one basis point. This standardized size helps to protect investors from huge losses. For example, if a pip was 10 basis points, a one-pip change would cause more extreme volatility in currency values. Assume that we have a USD/EUR direct quote of 0.7747. What this quote means is that for US$1, you can buy about 0.7747 euros. If there was a one-pip increase in this quote (to 0.7748), the value of the U.S. dollar would rise relative to the euro, as US$1 would allow you to buy slightly more euros. The effect that a one-pip change has on the dollar amount, or pip value, depends on the amount of euros purchased. If an investor buys 10,000 euros with U.S. dollars, the price paid will be US$12,908.22 ([1/0.7747] x 10,000). If the exchange rate for this pair experiences a one-pip increase, the price paid would be $12,906.56 ([1/0.7748] x 10,000). In that case, the pip value on a lot of 10,000 euros will be US$1.66 ($12,908.22 – $12,906.56). If, on the other hand, the same investor purchases 100,000 euros at the same initial price, the pip value will be US$16.6. As this example demonstrates, the pip value increases depending on the amount of the underlying currency (in this case euros) that is purchased.

While it may take some time to grasp the meaning behind all of the forex terms, forex is more of a skill than a science. Many people try to overcomplicate forex. Once you understand how it works, it’s actually quite simple. But just like any skill, there’s always ways to improve.

A forex brokerage is an entity that connects retail forex traders with the forex market. The Forex market is traded on the “interbank” which is a fancy way of saying banks trade electronically with each other at various prices that may change from bank to bank. A forex trading account is something like a bank account where you can purchase currencies and hold them. Currencies are specifically purchased in pairs. If you buy the EUR/USD, you are holding for the US Dollar to become worth less per Euro over time. The Euro must become worth more money in dollars, for you to make a profit. A forex brokerage offers you a way to get into the mix with the banking network and purchase a currency pair to hold in an easy manner.

Forex brokers make their money by taking a slice of the pie when you make a trade. The change in the relationship between two currencies in a pair is measured in pips. When you make a trade the forex broker charges you a few pips before actually putting your trade on the market. The market might be trading at 1.3100 EUR/USD as a buying price, and when you enter your trade, the broker may put you in at 1.3102. If you immediately close your trade, the forex broker collects the profit between the “market price” and the price you paid. This is called the spread.