VIDEO LESSON - How Banks, Hedge Funds, and Corporations Move Currencies

Behind central banks in terms of size and ability to move the foreign exchange market are the banks. It is important to understand here that in addition to executing trades on behalf of their clients, the bank's traders often times try to earn additional profits by taking speculative positions in the market as well.

While most of the other players we are going to discuss in this lesson do not have the size and clout to move the market in their favor, many of these bank traders are an exception to this rule and can leverage their huge buying power and inside knowledge of client order flow to move the market in their favor. This is why you hear about quick market jumps in the foreign exchange market being attributed to the clearing out the stops in the market or protecting an option level, things which we will learn more about in later lessons.

The next level of participants is the large hedge funds who trade in the foreign exchange market for speculative purposes to try and generate alpha, or a return for their investors that is over and above the average market return. Most forex hedge funds are trend following, meaning they tend to build into longer term positions over time to try and profit from a longer term uptrend or downtrend in the market. These funds are one of the reasons that currencies often times develop nice longer term trends, something that can be of benefit to the individual position trader.

Although not the typical way that Hedge funds profit from the market, probably the most famous example of a hedge fund trading foreign exchange is the example of George Soros' Quantum fund who made a very large amount of money betting against the Bank of England.

Next in line are multinational corporations who are forced to be participants in the forex market because of their overseas earnings which are often converted back into US Dollars or other currencies depending on where the company is headquartered. As the value of the currency in which the overseas revenue was earned can rise or fall before that conversion, the company is exposed to potential losses and/or gains in revenue which have nothing to do with their business. To remove this exchange rate uncertainty many multinational corporations will hedge this risk by taking positions in the forex market which negate any exchange rate fluctuation on their overseas revenues.

Secondly these corporations also buy other corporations overseas, something which is known as cross boarder mergers and acquisitions. As the transaction for the company being bought or sold is done in that company's home country and currency, this can drive the value of a currency up as demand is created for the currency to buy the company or down as supply is created when the company is sold.

Lastly are individuals such as you and I who participate in the forex market in three main areas:

1. As Investors Seeking Yield: Although not very popular in the United States, overseas and particularly in Japan where interest rates have been close to zero for many years, individuals will buy the currencies or other assets of a country with a higher interest rate in order to earn a higher rate of return on their money. This is also referred to as a carry trade, something that we will learn more about in later lessons.

2. As Travelers: Obviously when traveling to a country which has a different currency individual travelers must exchange their home currency for the currency of the country where they are traveling.

3. Individual speculators who actively trade currencies trying to profit from the fluctuation of one currency against another. This is as we discussed in our last lesson a relatively new phenomenon but most likely the reason why you are watching this video and therefore a growing one.