What is traded in Forex? A guide for all South African traders

By: Chime Amara

There are six major financial instruments traded in the forex market today. These financial instruments are largely offered as CFDs by brokers to all forex traders. We have discussed them below:

A. Currencies: The currencies traded usually come in pairs such as EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, etc. The currency traded at the market are further divided into three categories as major, minor and exotic Currencies.

B. Commodities: There are three major commodities traded in the forex market known as: Gold, Silver, and Crude oil. These commodities are offered for trading as CFDs by the brokers in which case the trader does not need to have the physical equivalence of these commodities.

C. Stocks: These to companies that have completed an initial public offering and are listed for trading on the stock exchange market. Examples of stocks include: Amazon, eBay, Google, Facebook, etc.

D. Indices: An index refers to a group of stocks combined as one with their average prices weighed as one. The index pairs are often used to track the performance of the financial instruments that they represent. Examples of indices are Ger30, DXY, US30, JP225, etc.

E. Cryptocurrency: This refers to various digital assets built on a Blockchain and offered for trading at the exchange market. Examples include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Binance Coin, Ripple, etc.

F. ETFs: This refers to a poll of funds assembled from various investors and offered for trading by brokers. Examples of ETFs are iShares MSCI Hong Kong, iShares MSCI South Korea, iShares Dow Jones, etc.