Forex scam
Thursday, November 16, 2006
A forex scam is any trading scheme used to defraud individual traders by convincing them that they can expect to profit by trading in the foreign exchange market. These scams might include churning of customer accounts for the purpose of generating commissions, selling software that is supposed to guide the customer to large profits (see, e.g. James Dicks), improperly managed "managed accounts,"false advertising, ponzi schemes and outright fraud . It also refers to any retail broker who indicates that trading foreign exchange is a reasonably safe and profitable method of investment.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which loosely regulates the foreign exchange market in the United States, has noted an increase in the amount of unscrupulous activity in the non-bank foreign exchange industry.
CNN quotes an official of the National Futures Association as saying, "Retail forex trading has increased dramatically over the past few years. Unfortunately, the amount of forex fraud has also increased dramatically." Between 2001 and 2006 the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has prosecuted more than 80 cases involving the defrauding of more than 23,000 customers who lost $300 million, mostly in managed accounts. CNN also quoted Godfried De Vidts, President of the Financial Markets Association, a European body, as saying, "Banks have a duty to protect their customers and they should make sure customers understand what they are doing. Now if people go online, on non-bank portals, how is this control being done?"
The highly technical nature of retail forex industry, the OTC nature of the market, and the loose regulation of the market, leaves retail speculators vulnerable. Defrauded traders and regulatory authorities, can find it very difficult to prove that market manipulation has occurred since there is no central currency market, but rather a number of more or less interconnected marketplaces provided by interbank market makers.
CFTC warnings
The CFTC lists 9 warning sign for foreign exchange trading fraud.
- 1. Stay Away From Opportunities That Sound Too Good to Be True
- 2. Avoid Any Company that Predicts or Guarantees Large Profits
- 3. Stay Away From Companies That Promise Little or No Financial Risk
- 4. Don't Trade on Margin Unless You Understand What It Means
- 5. Question Firms That Claim To Trade in the "Interbank Market"
- 6. Be Wary of Sending or Transferring Cash on the Internet, By Mail or Otherwise
- .... Be especially alert to the dangers of trading on-line.
- 7. Currency Scams Often Target Members of Ethnic Minorities
- 8. Be Sure You Get the Company's Performance Track Record
- 9. Don't Deal With Anyone Who Won't Give You Their Background
The disadvantages of retail speculators
The foreign exchange market is a negative-sum game, which means that any gain that one trader makes is a loss for another trader and both are giving money to the broker. It also means that the average return for all traders is less than 0%, even though there is high risk in this market. There are many experienced, well-capitalized professional traders (e.g., working for banks) who can devote their attention full time to trading in this market. An inexperienced retail trader will have a significant information disadvantage compared to these traders.
Retail speculators are almost always undercapitalized, and as such are subject to the problem of gambler's ruin. In a fair game (e.g. one with no information advantages) between two players that continues until one trader goes bankrupt, the player with the lower amount of capital has a higher probability of going bankrupt first. Any speculator who plays this strategy (i.e., gambling without skill) is effectively playing against the market as a whole, which has nearly infinite capital, and he will almost certainly go bankrupt. Any speculator — particularly undercapitalized traders who do not have any informational advantages — needs to understand the reason why he thinks he can "beat the market" in such a difficult trading environment.
If the retail trader always pays the bid/ask spread, which is most likely the case, it makes his odds of winning less than those of a fair game. Additional costs may include margin interest, and if a spot position is kept open for more than one day, the trade must be "resettled" each day, each time costing the full bid/ask spread. Also, the retail trader is not always guaranteed the best price (called best price as compared to dealable price).
According to the Wall Street Journal ("Currency Markets Draw Speculation, Fraud", July 26, 2005), "Even people running the trading shops warn clients against trying to time the market. 'If 15% of day traders are profitable,' says Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, 'I'd be surprised.'"
Additional disadvantages when dealing with market makers
The spot currency trades placed by retail speculators are made directly with the trader's own "market maker"; that is, the market maker is the counter-party and takes the other side of the transaction. Thus, many of spot trades never enter the interbank market.
Retail speculators (traders) are less vulnerable to being scammed if the broker passes the spot trades directly to the interbank market, without the use of a "dealing desk." A "dealing desk" refers to the market maker's desk for trading with his own customers - a closed market; a "non-dealing desk" refers to the market maker's desk for trading with the open market. The claim "No Dealing Desk", used in advertising by various forex brokers, is not a guarantee to the trader, and does not define how spot trades are actually made.
When trading with any dealing desk, speculators, especially low-capital retail speculators, suffer from many disadvantages including the following:
- Unless they have accounts at different firms, they have no competitive prices to trade against; i.e., they must accept their market maker price or not trade.
- The market maker may or may not show them the actual prices from the forex market; there may be a delay or "price shading", where prices displayed are off market (e.g., a given rate is shown slightly higher than on the interbank market if the market maker expects the price to increase, though protected against arbitrage by the spread). Thus the market maker has better information with which to determine what prices to display.
- Traders are often encouraged to over-leverage their positions, increasing the likelihood traders will receive a margin call, which will close their positions immediately.
The use of high leverage
By offering high leverage, the market maker encourages traders to trade extremely large positions. This increases the trading volume cleared by the market maker and increases his profits, but increases the risk that the trader will receive a margin call. While professional currency dealers (banks, hedge funds) never use more than 10:1 leverage, retail clients are generally offered leverage between 50:1 and 200:1, and even up to 400:1.
The use of stop-loss orders
Retail market makers will often encourage their clients to trade on margin and set stop loss orders, which allow the market makers to close out trades almost at will during busy markets at prices they have set. If the market maker does not offset the trader's position, the loss generated when a stop loss is triggered becomes the market maker's gain.
Trade prices are easily skewed one way or the other depending on the retail trader's position, which is known by the market maker. Traders can be encouraged to take risky positions just before major economic announcements. If all else fails, the market maker can quote extreme prices (known as spiking) to trigger stop loss orders while the client is at work or asleep.
The vast majority of retail FX traders are not profitable. For those losing retail speculators, much of the funds they had on deposit will be, in some form or another, transferred to the market maker.
The scam exposure scam
Several websites (e.g. Information About Forex Scams and Forex Scams: How to Spot Them a Mile Away) give information on forex scams in order to attract customers to forex brokers who turn out to be forex scammers. For example, the first website above contains advertising links to several forex operators including one who sells FX prediction software which claims "80% accuracy."
Trader recourse and anticipated changes within the forex market
Traders have recourse to dedicated blogs that document the risks, scams and unfair practices associated with dealing desks Interactive forums allow discussion, complaint and rebuttal by both traders, and the brokers/market makers. see: http://nondealingdesk.com/ Such blogs and forums hold the possibility of creating change within the retail forex industry. The retail forex industry also faces structural change as a result of larger entities creating a centrally cleared marketplace. Such centralization will of necessity demand greater scrutiny and enforcement.
posted @ 7:04 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Speculation
Controversy about currency speculators and their effect on currency devaluations and national economies recurs regularly. Nevertheless, many economists (e.g. Milton Friedman) argue that speculators perform the important function of providing a market for hedgers and transferring risk from those people who don't wish to bear it, to those who do. In addition, according to the standardized Series 3 exam, speculation adds liquidity to a market. ( The Series 3 exam is administered by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). The National Futures Association (NFA) generally requires an individual to successfully complete the Series 3 in order to be qualified to sell commodities or futures contracts.)
posted @ 7:02 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Retail forex brokers
Retail forex brokers or market makers handle a minute fraction of the total volume of the foreign exchange market. According to CNN, one retail broker estimates retail volume at $25-50 billion daily, which is about 2% of the whole market.
posted @ 7:01 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Hedge funds
Hedge funds, such as George Soros's Quantum fund have gained a reputation for aggressive currency speculation since 1990. They control billions of dollars of equity and may borrow billions more, and thus may overwhelm intervention by central banks to support almost any currency, if the economic fundamentals are in the hedge funds' favor.
posted @ 6:59 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Investment management firms
Investment management firms (who typically manage large accounts on behalf of customers such as pension funds and endowments) use the foreign exchange market to facilitate transactions in foreign securities. For example, an investment manager with an international equity portfolio will need to buy and sell foreign currencies in the spot market in order to pay for purchases of foreign equities. Since the forex transactions are secondary to the actual investment decision, they are not seen as speculative or aimed at profit-maximization.
Some investment management firms also have more speculative specialist currency overlay operations, which manage clients' currency exposures with the aim of generating profits as well as limiting risk. Whilst the number of this type of specialist firms is quite small, many have a large value of assets under management (AUM), and hence can generate large trades.
posted @ 6:58 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Central banks
National central banks play an important role in the foreign exchange markets. They try to control the money supply, inflation, and/or interest rates and often have official or unofficial target rates for their currencies. They can use their often substantial foreign exchange reserves to stabilize the market. Milton Friedman argued that the best stabilization strategy would be for central banks to buy when the exchange rate is too low, and to sell when the rate is too high — that is, to trade for a profit based on their more precise information. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of central bank "stabilizing speculation" is doubtful because central banks do not go bankrupt if they make large losses, like other traders would, and there is no convincing evidence that they do make a profit trading.
The mere expectation or rumor of central bank intervention might be enough to stabilize a currency, but aggressive intervention might be used several times each year in countries with a dirty float currency regime. Central banks do not always achieve their objectives, however. The combined resources of the market can easily overwhelm any central bank. Several scenarios of this nature were seen in the 1992-93 ERM collapse, and in more recent times in Southeast Asia.
posted @ 6:57 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Commercial companies
An important part of this market comes from the financial activities of companies seeking foreign exchange to pay for goods or services. Commercial companies often trade fairly small amounts compared to those of banks or speculators, and their trades often have little short term impact on market rates. Nevertheless, trade flows are an important factor in the long-term direction of a currency's exchange rate. Some multinational companies can have an unpredictable impact when very large positions are covered due to exposures that are not widely known by other market participants.
posted @ 6:56 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Banks
The interbank market caters for both the majority of commercial turnover and large amounts of speculative trading every day. A large bank may trade billions of dollars daily. Some of this trading is undertaken on behalf of customers, but much is conducted by proprietary desks, trading for the bank's own account.
Until recently, foreign exchange brokers did large amounts of business, facilitating interbank trading and matching anonymous counterparts for small fees. Today, however, much of this business has moved on to more efficient electronic systems, such as EBS, Reuters Dealing 3000 Matching (D2), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg and TradeBook(R). The broker squawk box lets traders listen in on ongoing interbank trading and is heard in most trading rooms, but turnover is noticeably smaller than just a few years ago.
posted @ 6:53 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Market Participants
Unlike a stock market, where all participants have access to the same prices, the Forex market is divided into levels of access. At the top is the inter-bank market, which is made up of the largest investment banking firms. Within the Inter-bank market, spreads, which are the difference between the bid and ask prices, are razor sharp and usually unavailable, and not known, to players outside the inner circle. As you descend the levels of access, the difference between the bid and ask prices widens. This is due to volume. If a trader can guarantee large numbers of transactions for large amounts, they can demand a smaller difference between the bid and ask price, which is referred to as a better spread. The levels of access that make up the Forex market are determined by the size of the “line” (the amount of money with which they are trading). The top-tier inter-bank market accounts for 53% of all transactions. After that there are usually smaller investment banks, followed by large multi-national corporations (which need to hedge risk and pay employees in different countries), large hedge funds, and even some of the retail Forex market makers. According to Galati and Melvin , “Pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and other institutional investors have played an increasingly important role in financial markets in general, and in FX markets in particular, since the early 2000s.” (2004) In addition, he notes, “Hedge funds have grown markedly over the 2001-2004 period in terms of both number and overall size” Central banks also participate in the Forex market in order to align currencies to their economic needs.
posted @ 6:52 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Trading characteristics
There is no single unified foreign exchange market. Due to the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of currency markets, there are rather a number of interconnected marketplaces, where different currency instruments are traded. This implies that there is no such thing as a single dollar rate - but rather a number of different rates (prices), depending on what bank or market maker is trading. In practice the rates are often very close, otherwise they could be exploited by arbitrageurs.
| Rank | Currency | ISO 4217 Code | Symbol |
| 1 | United States dollar | USD | $ |
| 2 | Eurozone euro | EUR | € |
| 3 | Japanese yen | JPY | ¥ |
| 4 | British pound sterling | GBP | £ |
| 5-6 | Swiss franc | CHF | - |
| 5-6 | Australian dollar | AUD | $ |
The main trading centers are in London, New York, and Tokyo, but banks throughout the world participate. As the Asian trading session ends, the European session begins, then the US session, and then the Asian begin in their turns. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open.
There is little or no 'inside information' in the foreign exchange markets. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as by expectations of changes in monetary flows caused by changes in GDP growth, inflation, interest rates, budget and trade deficits or surpluses, and other macroeconomic conditions. Major news is released publicly, often on scheduled dates, so many people have access to the same news at the same time. However, the large banks have an important advantage; they can see their customers' order flow.
Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar. Out of convention, the first currency in the pair, the base currency, was the stronger currency at the creation of the pair. The second currency, counter currency, was the weaker currency at the creation of the pair.
On the spot market, according to the BIS study, the most heavily traded products were:
-
- EUR/USD - 28 %
- USD/JPY - 18 %
- GBP/USD (also called sterling or cable) - 14 %
and the US currency was involved in 89% of transactions, followed by the euro (37%), the yen (20%) and sterling (17%). (Note that volume percentages should add up to 200% - 100% for all the sellers, and 100% for all the buyers).
Although trading in the euro has grown considerably since the currency's creation in January 1999, the foreign exchange market is thus still largely dollar-centered. For instance, trading the euro versus a non-European currency ZZZ will usually involve two trades: EUR/USD and USD/ZZZ. The only exception to this is EUR/JPY, which is an established traded currency pair in the interbank spot market.
posted @ 6:51 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
The Difference between Spot and Futures in Forex
Before a description of retail trading, it is important to understand the difference between the Spot and Futures markets. Futures are generally based on contracts, with typical durations of 3 months. Spot, on the other hand, is a two-day cash delivery. While the Futures markets was created to hedge out risks and speculate on future market conditions, Spot was created to allow actual cash deliveries. Spot developed a two-day delivery date in order to give those transporting the actual cash a window of time to receive it. While in theory there still is a two-day delivery date imposed after a Forex transaction, this is effectively no longer used. Every day, at 5 pm EST (the predetermined end of the trading day) Spot positions are closed and then reopened. This is done in order to guarantee an unlimited timeline for delivery. For example, if a Spot transaction occurs on a Monday, the delivery date is Wednesday. At 5 pm on Monday, the position is closed and then immediately re-opened; now this is a new position with the close date of Thursday. This daily process allows an investor to hold open a position indefinitely.
Another important difference between Futures and Spot is how interest is credited. Each currency in a Forex transaction has an inherent interest rate attached to it. In the case of the US dollar, this is the Federal Funds Rate. This interest is added every single day whether the market is trading or not. Interest cannot take a vacation; money and its loaning value are still important even if the financial world has stopped dealing. In Futures, the interest is built into the price of the contract. In Spot, however, interest is not taken into account in the offering price because the Spot market is a cash market, not a contract market. There must be some mechanism for crediting interest, and various institutions have developed ways to do it. The most common method is to credit that day’s worth of interest at the same time they “flip” the position, or carry it over to the next day. This is important for later discussions and analysis because the transactions examined in this study had interest credited at the end of the business day at exactly 5 pm EST. If a position was held from 5:01 pm on Tuesday and closed at 4:59 pm on Wednesday, no interest would be credited for that day. If, on the other hand, a position was opened Tuesday at 4:59 pm and closed Tuesday 5:01 pm, a full day’s interest would be credited. This has interesting ramifications; traders who work intra-day, or “day traders,” often do not use interest for either gain or loss.
posted @ 6:50 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Financial Instruments
There are several types of financial instruments commonly used.
Forward transaction: One way to deal with the Forex risk is to engage in a forward transaction. In this transaction, money does not actually change hands until some agreed upon future date. A buyer and seller agree on an exchange rate for any date in the future, and the transaction occurs on that date, regardless of what the market rates are then. The duration of the trade can be a few days, months or years.
Futures: Foreign currency futures are forward transactions with standard contract sizes and maturity dates — for example, 500,000 British pounds for next November at an agreed rate. Futures are standardized and are usually traded on an exchange created for this purpose. The average contract length is roughly 3 months. Futures contracts are usually inclusive of any interest amounts.
Swap: The most common type of forward transaction is the currency swap. In a swap, two parties exchange currencies for a certain length of time and agree to reverse the transaction at a later date. These are not contracts and are not traded through an exchange.
Spot: A spot transaction is a two-day delivery transaction, as opposed to the Futures contracts, which are usually three months. This trade represents a “direct exchange” between two currencies, has the shortest time frame, involves cash rather than a contract; and interest is not included in the agreed-upon transaction. The data for this study come from the Spot market.
posted @ 6:49 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Market size and liquidity
The foreign exchange market is unique because of:
-
- its trading volume,
- the extreme liquidity of the market,
- the large number of, and variety of, traders in the market,
- its geographical dispersion,
- its long trading hours - 24 hours a day (except on weekends).
- the variety of factors that affect exchange rates,
According to the BIS study Triennial Central Bank Survey 2004, average daily turnover in traditional foreign exchange markets was estimated at $1,880 billion. Daily averages in April for different years, in billions of US dollars, are presented on the chart below:
Global foreign exchange market turnover:
-
- $621 billion spot
- $1.26 trillion in derivatives, ie
- $208 billion in outright forwards
- $944 billion in forex swaps
- $107 billion in FX options.
| Rank | Name | % of volume |
| 1 | Deutsche Bank | 17.0 |
| 2 | UBS | 12.5 |
| 3 | Citigroup | 7.5 |
| 4 | HSBC | 6.4 |
| 5 | Barclays | 5.9 |
| 6 | Merrill Lynch | 5.7 |
| 7 | J.P. Morgan Chase | 5.3 |
| 8 | Goldman Sachs | 4.4 |
| 9 | ABN AMRO | 4.2 |
| 10 | Morgan Stanley | 3.9 |
Exchange-traded forex futures contracts were introduced in 1972 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and are actively traded relative to most other futures contracts. Forex futures volume has grown rapidly in recent years, but only accounts for about 7% of the total foreign exchange market volume, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe (5/5/06, p. 20).
The ten most active traders account for almost 73% of trading volume, according to TheWall Street Journal Europe, (2/9/06 p. 20). These large international banks continually provide the market with both bid (buy) and ask (sell) prices. The bid/ask spread is the difference between the price at which a bank or market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") and the price at which a market-maker will buy ("bid") from a wholesale customer. This spread is minimal for actively traded pairs of currencies, usually only 1-3 pips. For example, the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.2200/1.2203. Minimum trading size for most deals is usually $100,000.
These spreads might not apply to retail customers at banks, which will routinely mark up the difference to say 1.2100 / 1.2300 for transfers, or say 1.2000 / 1.2400 for banknotes or travelers' checks. Spot prices at market makers vary, but on EUR/USD are usually no more than 5 pips wide (i.e. 0.0005). Competition has greatly increased with pip spreads shrinking on the majors to as little as 1 to 1.5 pips.
posted @ 6:47 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
History
The forex market is a cash inter-bank or inter-dealer market, which was established in 1971 [citation needed] when floating exchange rates began to appear. The foreign exchange market is huge in comparison to other markets. For example, the average daily trading volume of US Treasury Bonds is $300 billion and the US stock market has an average daily volume of less than $10 billion. Ten years ago the Wall Street Journal estimated the daily trading volume in the forex market to be in excess of $1 trillion. Today that figure has grown to exceed $1.8 trillion a day.
Prior to 1971 an agreement called the Bretton Woods Agreement prevented speculation in the currency markets. The Bretton Woods Agreement was set up in 1945 with the aim of stabilising international currencies and preventing money fleeing across nations. This agreement fixed all national currencies against the dollar and set the dollar at a rate of $35 per ounce of gold. Prior to this agreement the gold exchange standard had been used since 1876. The gold standard used gold to back each currency and thus prevented kings and rulers from arbitrarily debasing money and triggering inflation. Institutions like the Federal Reserve System of the United States have this kind of power.
The gold exchange standard had its own problems however. As an economy grew it would import goods from overseas until it ran its gold reserves down. As a result the country’s money supply would shrink resulting in interest rates rising and a slowing of economic activity to the extent that a recession would occur.
Eventually the recession would cause prices of goods to fall so low that they appeared attractive to other nations. This in turn led to an inflow of gold back into the economy and the resulting increase in money supply saw interest rates fall and the economy strengthen. These boom-bust patterns prevailed throughout the world during the gold exchange standard years until the outbreak of World War I which interrupted the free flow of trade and thus the movement of gold.
After the war the Bretton Woods Agreement was established, where participating countries agreed to try and maintain the value of their currency with a narrow margin against the dollar. A rate was also used to value the dollar in relation to gold. Countries were prohibited from devaluing their currency to improve their trade position by more than 10%. Following World War II international trade expanded rapidly due to post-war construction and this resulted in massive movements of capital. This destabilized the foreign exchange rates that had been set-up by the Bretton Woods Agreement.
The agreement was finally abandoned in 1971, and the US dollar was no longer convertible to gold. By 1973, currencies of the major industrialized nations became more freely floating, controlled mainly by the forces of supply and demand. Prices were set, with volumes, speed and price volatility all increasing during the 1970’s. This led to new financial instruments, market deregulation and open trade. It also led to a rise in the power of speculators.
In the 1980’s the movement of money across borders accelerated with the advent of computers and the market became a continuum, trading through the Asian, European and American time zones. Large banks created dealing rooms where hundreds of millions of dollars, pounds, euros and yen were exchanged in a matter on minutes. Today electronic brokers trade daily in the forex market, in London for example, single trades for tens of millions of dollars are priced in seconds. The market has changed dramatically with most international financial transactions being carried out not to buy and sell goods but to speculate on the market with the aim of most dealers to make money out of money.
London has grown to become the world’s leading international financial center and is the world’s largest forex market. This arose not only due to its location, operating during the Asian and American markets, but also due to the creation of the Eurodollar market. The Eurodollar market was created during the 1950’s when Russia’s oil revenue, all in US dollars, was deposited outside the US in fear of being frozen by US authorities. This created a large pool of US dollars that were outside the control of the US. These vast cash reserves were very attractive to foreign investors as they had far less regulations and offered higher yields.
Today London continues to grow as more and more American and European banks come to the city to establish their regional headquarters. The sizes dealt with in these markets are huge and the smaller banks, commercial hedgers and private investors hardly ever have direct access to this liquid and competitive market, either because they fail to meet credit criteria or because their transaction sizes are too small. But today market makers are allowed to break down the large inter-bank units and offer small traders the opportunity to buy or sell any number of these smaller units (lots).
posted @ 6:45 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
Foreign exchange market
| Foreign Exchange | |
 | |
The foreign exchange (currency or forex or FX) market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. It is by far the largest market in the world, in terms of cash value traded, and includes trading between large banks, central banks, currency speculators, multinational corporations, governments, and other financial markets and institutions. The trade happening in the forex markets across the globe currently exceeds $1.9 trillion/day (on average). Retail traders (individuals) are currently a very small part of this market and may only participate indirectly through brokers or banks and may be targets of forex scams.
According to Peter Garnham from the Financial Times website (Published: October 9 2006 20:48) " The foreign exchange market will have doubled in size in just three years next year, thanks to increased participation by fund managers and pension funds, says research out on Monday. TowerGroup, a financial services research consultancy, said it expected total global average daily volumes on the FX market to exceed $3,000bn in 2007. FX volumes, which rose from $1,770bn in 2004 to $2,000bn last year, were set to rise to $2,600bn this year and $3,600bn next year, as foreign exchange became accepted as an asset class in its own right according to TowerGroup.
posted @ 6:30 PM,
,
|
|
|
|
|
