Until the last few years the forex markets were dominated by the worlds large financial institutions. However the rapid growth of the internet and popularity of internet trading platforms has meant that more and more individual investors have been able to access the market.

24 hour markets

One of the main benefits to many part time traders is that due to their global nature the Forex markets are open 24 hours a day. This means that is is perfectly possible to fit your forex trading around the other commitments in your life such as work, family etc. No matter what time of day you want to trade there will always be an available market open. In todays world of online trading it doesn't matter if the market is in North America, Europe or Asia.

Liquidity is huge in the forex market

There has been a lot of talk about how the lack of liquidity ion the equity stock markets has been one of the major reasons for falling prices. Well liquidity is not a problem in the forex markets. The Forex market is the largest and most liquid of all markets anywhere in the world. It is estimated that over $3 trillion of trades happen every day in this market, the vast majority of which happen in just a handful of major currency pairs.

Another benefit of this liquidity is the very cheap transaction cost of trading forex. In fact with most platforms you do not actually pay an individual transaction cost, instead the brokers make their money form the spread built into their quotes for different currencies.

The liquidity of the market brings another benefit. It means it is much easier to use trading software to help you trade. Such software is essentially a computer program designed to make trades automatically and make very small profits on each one, seeking to gain from small discrepancies over time.