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A repurchase agreement is a short-term loan structured as the sale of securities. As part of the repo, the seller agrees to buy the securities back at a later date. Learn more about a repo works at FXCM Insights.

A Ponzi scheme is a type of financial fraud that occurs when the perpetrator promises consistent, guaranteed returns on an investment. In reality, however, it simply involves paying early investors by using payments from new investors.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a statistic derived and used around the globe to identify prevailing inflationary or deflationary pressures. It is calculated by averaging the prices of a basket of select goods and services commonly consumed by households.

In the standardised trade of futures, participants buy and sell contracts in an attempt to secure marketshare. The phenomenon of contango is a prime example of how the process of price discovery works and how the expectations of market participants influence asset value. Contango Defined Pricing derivative products, such as futures and options, is dependent on three factors: asset class, quantity and time. In the case of futures, a contract's…

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…

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.

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…

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.

Market structure is crucial to successful trading. A critical part of active trading is identifying the state a market is in, be it rotational, trending, consolidating or entering reversal.

Standardised futures contracts and exchange-traded funds are viable methods of engaging the financial markets. Offering derivative and conventional products, each provides access to the commodity, currency, equity and debt markets.