The foreign exchange market – most often called the FOREX market, or simply the FX market - is the most traded financial market in the world. The Forex market is the crossroads for international capital, the intersection through which global commercial and investment flows have to move.

Today, however, global financial and investment flows dominate trade as the primary non-speculative source of Forex market volume. More than anything else, the Forex market is a trader’s market. It’s a market that open around the clock six days a week, enabling trades to act on news and events as they happen. Forex is a market where half-billion-dollar trades can be executed in a matter of seconds and may not even move prices noticeably. Average daily currency trading volume exceeds $2 trillion per day.
 
Speculating in the currency market
While commercial and financial transactions in the currency market represent huge nominal sums, they still pale in comparison to amounts based on speculation. By far the vast majority of currency trading volume is based on speculation – traders buying and selling for short-term gains based on minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day price fluctuations.