Currency Trading Greater Than 3.2T

According to recent articles, currency trading worldwide is now greater than 3T UD$ a day, up from recently quoted figures of about 1.9-2.5T. Currency trading is no longer just for banks anymore:

 

It's been quite a while since forex trading was just for the banks.

 

There was a link to the article, but someone with the power decided to delete the link (perhaps they could PM me and tell me why) but here is the artilcle referenced above:

WSJ article available online:

As subprime mortgage problems in the U.S. fanned out in recent months to hedge funds and banks thousands of miles away, investors got a stark view of the vast interconnectedness of the global financial system.

Now, a report by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, adds some hard numbers to that picture. Global markets are exploding in size, scope and complexity.

The BIS, which offers services to central banks, provides a reality check on financial globalization by tracking the size of foreign-exchange markets.

In April, daily turnover in currency markets rose to $3.2 trillion, the bank said yesterday.

That's more in value than the annual economic output of Germany or China, changing hands in currency markets every day around the world. It's also up 71% from the BIS's last survey in 2004, the largest jump in volume since the institution began conducting its benchmark survey in 1989.

The currency market is "the world's biggest fruit and vegetable stall," says Jim O'Neill, global head of economic research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. "There are so many participants in it, and it adjusts very quickly to new information."

The study touches on many types of financial transactions, from hedge funds making complex financial bets, to companies transacting money to source parts in China, to Americans loading up on yen or euros before a trip abroad.

"Everyone has gone overseas," says Stephen Jen, global head of currency research at Morgan Stanley. "The word 'globalization' conjures up this notion of container ships carrying goods, but financial globalization is immensely powerful and we're just starting to understand it."