FXCM Research Team

What Are The Basel Accords? The Basel Accords are a set of standards created by the Basel Committee to establish uniform banking regulation among the world's financial systems. The Basel Committee was originally called the Committee on Banking Regulations and Supervisory Practices, and it was headquartered at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. It was created in 1974 by the central bank governors of the Group of Ten…

A pivot point is a technical tool used in forex trading to determine potential support and resistance levels and the direction of a prevailing trend. While the basis of the indicator is rooted in elementary arithmetic, performing the necessary computations manually is time consuming and cumbersome. However, through the use of the Pivot Point Calculator, traders can quickly and easily execute the necessary calculations in an efficient manner. Warning: Ad-blockers…

In live forex trading, having a solid understanding of your profit and loss (P&L) potential at any given time is a must. It is simply not enough to place a trade and hope for positive results. Quantifying the upside of an open position, as well as its downside liability, is a great way to ensure consistent and responsible risk management. Warning: Ad-blockers may prevent calculator from loading. However, completing this…

In forex, the term "pip" is an acronym that stands for "percentage in point." Pips represent the smallest increments of currency pricing and are key to the establishment of bid/ask spreads. For the active forex trader, pips play an important role in both risk and trade management. Exchange rate fluctuations are typically quantified in pips, making them the de facto measurement of profit and loss for currency traders. Accordingly, the…

An order book is a real-time and continuously updated list of buy and sell orders on an exchange. It is used for specific financial assets, such as a stock or currency, and can be used to determine the price support for the asset in question.

In 1973, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) placed an oil embargo on allies of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Until March of 1974, exorbitant energy prices plagued the global economy, prompting the creation of the petrodollar.

Successful traders approach trading with a clearly defined and thoroughly tested strategy. Most traders evaluate the hypothetical future performance of their strategy by measuring the profit or loss of the strategy run on historical data. But is measuring historical profitability enough? Historical profitability provides only a small piece of information about a trading strategy, while another factor that may be important to a trader is the riskiness of their strategy. The…

The Special Drawing Right (SDR) is an international reserve asset. Created by the IMF in 1969, SDRs are used to facilitate transactions and supplement IMF member country reserves. An SDR is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members.

Layering is an illegal tactic used to manipulate markets as a means of driving the price of an asset up or down, which is followed by a trade in the opposite direction. Learn more about layering at FXCM Insights.

The alpha and beta are important terms within the investing world, whether one is involved with stocks, mutual funds or ETFs. Learn more about these terms at FXCM Insights.