Plain words

What is forex?

Forex is the market where currencies are exchanged. This page explains it from zero — no experience needed.

Forex — short for “foreign exchange” — is the global market where one currency is swapped for another, like euros for US dollars. Exchange rates change all the time, and traders try to make money from those changes. They can also lose money the same way.

Currency pairs: how forex prices are written

Currencies are always priced in pairs, because a currency only has a value compared to another one.

Take EUR/USD, one of the most traded pairs. It simply means: the price of one euro, measured in US dollars. If EUR/USD shows 1.1000, one euro costs 1.1000 dollars — that is, 1 dollar and 10 cents.

If the number goes up, the euro got more expensive against the dollar.
If it goes down, the euro got cheaper against the dollar.

Every pair works the same way: the first currency is the thing being priced, the second is what it is priced in.

Why do prices move?

An exchange rate is just a price, and prices move when supply and demand change. A few everyday reasons:

News. Elections, conflicts, big announcements — anything that changes how people feel about a country’s money.
The economy. Reports on jobs, prices in shops, and interest rates make a currency more or less attractive to hold.
Buying and selling itself. Banks, companies, and travellers exchange currencies every day for normal reasons, and all of it nudges the price.

One honest thing to remember: no one can predict these moves reliably. Not banks, not experts on TV, not beginners. Anyone who says they know where a price is going tomorrow is guessing.

When is the market open?

Forex has no single building and no opening bell. It runs 24 hours a day on weekdays, because when banks close in one part of the world, they are opening in another. Trading passes around the globe like a relay.

On weekends the market rests. Prices can still “jump” between Friday’s close and Monday’s open, which surprises many beginners.

What does “trading forex” mean for a regular person?

You do not fly anywhere with a suitcase of cash. You open an account with a broker — a company that connects you to market prices — and trade from an app or a website.

Most everyday traders don’t actually own the currencies. They trade a CFD — a contract that simply follows the price of a pair. If the price moves the way you expected, you make money; if it moves against you, you lose money. Both happen to everyone.

How small can you start?

The standard trade size — called 1 lot — is 100,000 units of the first currency. For EUR/USD, that is 100,000 euros. Sounds enormous. The good news: you don’t trade that.

You can trade 0.01 lot — one hundredth of that size.
At that size, a pip — the small price step, like 1.1000 moving to 1.1001 — is worth about 10 cents.
On a Standard Cent account, the balance is kept in cents: $10 becomes about 1,000 small units, trades are roughly 100 times smaller, and mistakes cost cents.

And before any of that, there is the demo account: virtual money, free, no time limit. Practice comes before money — always.

Beginner questions

Is forex gambling?

It shares one thing with gambling: you can lose money, and the losses are real. But it is not a pure lottery. Skill matters — managing risk, keeping trades small, and being patient all change your results over time. What never changes: no outcome is certain, and even careful traders have losing trades. See risk basics for the safety rules.

Why do prices move at night?

Because the market is global. While you sleep, banks and businesses on the other side of the world are wide awake and exchanging currencies. Their activity moves prices, so a chart never really stands still on weekdays.

Keep going

What is a CFD?

The contract most everyday traders actually use — explained without jargon.

Understand CFDs

Reading a chart

What those candles and lines mean, and what a beginner should look at first.

Read your first chart

Trading words

Pip, lot, spread, leverage — the full beginner dictionary in plain language.

Learn the words

Want to watch real forex prices without risking anything?

A demo account lets you practise with virtual money. It is free, there is no time limit, and mistakes cost nothing. Keep in mind that demo results don’t promise the same on a real account.

Open a free demo at Exness

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