How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
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Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#2From someone who has absolutely no idea how the markets work and what are the 'mechanics' behind the stock markets, economy etc: what is the good/productive way to learn about such things? The linked article provides some explanation, but I still don't feel that I 'feel'/truly understand the topic. I'd recommend books/videos/articles recommendations.
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#3From someone who has absolutely no idea how the markets work and what are the 'mechanics' behind the stock markets, economy etc: what is the good/productive way to learn about such things? The linked article provides some explanation, but I still don't feel that I 'feel'/truly understand the topic. I'd recommend books/videos/articles recommendations.
http://investopedia.com is a great way to dive in and learn some vocabulary. They also have some nice videos.
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#4From someone who has absolutely no idea how the markets work and what are the 'mechanics' behind the stock markets, economy etc: what is the good/productive way to learn about such things? The linked article provides some explanation, but I still don't feel that I 'feel'/truly understand the topic. I'd recommend books/videos/articles recommendations.
A blog post I keep around because I was tired of writing the same things on HFT threads:
http://kc.my-junk.info/hft-books/
Of particular note if you are interested in the mechanics of exchanges is "Trading And Exchanges" By Harris. It is a little old at this point (and thus doesn't deal with RegNMS which is of particular importance to HFT) but a very good book on the basics.
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#5I can not imagine it is that good of a deal as I get calls about people wanting to help me with my foreign exchange on a monthly basis for many years now.
There is not topic that I get more cold calls on than this. This suggests to me, this means it must be fairly profitable for those companies offering it, and that profit likely would come out of my pockets, but I haven't done the analysis.
That said, I know my bank has pretty shitty exchange rates:
http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/cgi-bin/travel/currency-converte...
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#6Since their blog is coming up, asking HN:
Mondo is looking like an interesting bank. I've had my eyes on both them and Simple for a while; unfortunately, I'm not in the UK anymore nor in the US so I went with Number 26 instead. Anyone have any experience with either?
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#7Since their blog is coming up, asking HN: Mondo is looking like an interesting bank. I've had my eyes on both them and Simple for a while; unfortunately, I'm not in the UK anymore nor in the US so I went with Number 26 instead. Anyone have any experience with either?
I live in the UK and have had a Mondo card for about a month and a half. I've been very pleased with them so far, and there is clearly a big opportunity for them to bring some innovation to traditional banking.
Any specific questions?
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#8I've been left wondering how the Mondo/Mastercard rate actually works: yes they pick some rate based on X, Y and Z, but how does this interact with the market described in the post?
I suspect not very much at all, at least for major currencies, as Mastercard has people buying $ for £ in the UK, and £ for $ in the US, so they only need to go onto the market for the imbalance, allowing an "incredibly good" rate, when they're not exchanging much on the open market at all...
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#9From someone who has absolutely no idea how the markets work and what are the 'mechanics' behind the stock markets, economy etc: what is the good/productive way to learn about such things? The linked article provides some explanation, but I still don't feel that I 'feel'/truly understand the topic. I'd recommend books/videos/articles recommendations.
The Coursera course "Economics of Money and Banking" is fantastic, and focuses on real-world mechanics rather than theory. You should be able to view archived lectures if there isn't an active course: https://www.coursera.org/course/money
Re: How does the wholesale foreign exchange market actually work?
#10I can not imagine it is that good of a deal as I get calls about people wanting to help me with my foreign exchange on a monthly basis for many years now. There is not topic that I get more cold calls on than this. This suggests to me, this means it must be fairly profitable for those companies offering it, and that profit likely would come out of my pockets, but I haven't done the analysis. That said, I know my bank…
I transferred some savings last year, because I emigrated.
All the normal British banks offered very poor exchange rates. Traditional money exchange sites, which seemed to target people making large foreign purchases (houses etc) or people looking to invest in foreign currency were better, but as soon as I signed up on the website I received calls from their staff, which annoyed me.
In any case, the rates were still beaten by http://www.TransferWise.com/ (London startup). Transfers with TransferWise aren't instant, they wait until there's a transfer in the opposite direction. But I wanted a relatively obscure European currency, and my transaction was only in the queue for about 45 minutes.