i've heard 20% is speculative but wouldn't that mean the rest is random? That's a pretty high % movement is random due to businesses?
There is no such thing as volume in forex. It is a decentralised marketplace !!! The nearest you can get to an idea of volumes is CLS data or the reports published by Bank for International Settlements. I suspect the Bank for International Settlements reports is what you need to read, they summarise their findings by counterparty and instrument. Google it.
Where did you get the 20% from? Some interesting stuff here; http://www.bis.org/publ/rpfx16.htm http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1612.htm
You've certainly been looking in different places from me, then: I've heard around 85% is speculative (that's what sites like Investopedia and Wikipedia say). But it seems to me that the figure - being volume-based - doesn't mean as much as it used to, anyway, because of the advent of all the HFT's in the markets, and because of a proportion of volume transacted being arbitrage-based. No; in my opinion it wouldn't necessarily mean that at all. But clearly that depends on how you define it. I'm not criticising it at all, but the concept of "random due to businesses" isn't one I happen to share, myself. I think I see what you mean, but will still have to give it a bit more thought!
Interesting way of looking at it, Tim. Call me pedantic, but I think you really mean either "there is no such thing as monitored, recorded, collated volume in forex" or "there is no objective evidence of the sizes of the volume in forex". Clearly there's such a thing as "volume in forex" (I've transacted some of it, myself, in the past!).
Interesting way ? Its the facts. As I said, its a decentralised marketplace. For a start. What about the internalisers and B-Bookers ? The "volume" you have been transacting is whatever your forex broker has been showing you from their little corner of the market. There is/are no centralised exchange(s) and thus no real "volume" as such. That's a fact.
It's really not, Tim. (I wouldn't have said what I did, if I'd been trading forex via a counterparty market-maker). Clearly there's huge volume; there's just no way of monitoring or collating it, for exactly the reason you give. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist! Sorry, but it's just not a "fact". It's an interesting way of looking at it. I wasn't saying that as a great criticism - I was simply making the unarguable (and admittedly slightly pedantic, as I openly acknowledged) point that your wording was a little inaccurate - sorry!).
I've no idea what you're trying to get at here. I don't buy the argument you're trying to make here. So tell you what, since you obviously take issue with what I say, welcome to my block list...
Seriously? You have the right to express your opinion in no uncertain terms, someone expresses a different opinion in the most polite way possible, and you put them on the ignore list? I don't want to play with you anymore? Why don't you just fucking grow up?
@justrading You appear to be deliberatley mis-construing. I welcome other people's views, but when the other person starts relying on personal attacks, like the other poster and like you, then they get put on my block list. Simple.