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The Scope of the Forex Market and Current Trends

Significant changes have characterised the forex market in recent times. According to a 2019 Triennial Central Bank Survey (TCBS) of forex and over-the-counter derivatives markets, the average daily trading volume of FX is $6.6 trillion. The currency exchange market is a worldwide marketplace where national currencies are exchanged for one another. Forex market transactions are conducted for several reasons, notably for speculative purposes, hedging against interest-rate risk, guarding against international currency price movements, and for portfolio diversification building a trading model.

AvaTrade UK offers registered clients a variety of world-class trading platforms, complete with rapid executions of trades, accurate and timely data, and user-friendly functions. AvaTrade FX platforms include MetaTrader 4 (MT4), MetaTrader 5 (MT5), AvaOptions and ZuluTrade. Spread betting options for UK and Irish traders are also permitted. These trading platforms facilitate user-friendly trading of currency CFDs. Currently, there are 180+ different kinds of currencies available for trading purposes. Despite this, most forex trades involved popular currency such as the USD, GBP, JPY, EUR, CHF, CAD, AUD, and NZD. All of these currency pairs are readily available to traders on AvaTrade UKs platforms.

The United Kingdom remains the focal point of currency trading in Europe, and globally. According to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the United Kingdom remains the #1 foreign exchange trading hub in the world. When the TCBS survey was released, the UK accounted for a total of 43% of worldwide Forex trading activity. Reuters reported that London in particular is the epicentre of Forex trading with £2.1 trillion traded on average per day in April 2018. By April 2020, the London FX trading volume amounted to $2.41T, according to reports by the Bank of England.

The majority of Forex trading in the United Kingdom and globally is currency swaps, for hedging against currency risk, liquidity management and speculation. In 2020, there were declines in overall currency trading activity, owing largely to a loss of liquidity in the market, by way of reduced spot turnover. For example, reduced average daily turnover amounts in the GBP/USD currency pair and the EUR/GBP currency pair were reported at $138 billion and $24.7 billion respectively. The pandemic slowed overall demand for goods and services, with widespread shuttering of business enterprise, on a global scale. 2021 is expected to yield a sharp increase in Forex trading activity, with institutional and retail traders alike

Table Of Contents

Compare AvaTrade Platforms in UK

Forex trading has evolved dramatically in the last 15 years. The formerly restrictive barriers have been broken down, so that it is no longer just reserved for the high net worth or institutional traders. Nowadays you can trade online from the comfort of your own home. You need only have a small starting deposit and access to the internet and you can trade freely. In order to get access directly to CFD trading, you will need to use a trading platform. Good brokers will give you a selection of trading platforms as your gateway to the capital markets. Often, as with AvaTrade you will be given a Web based platform, a desktop (download) version and a mobile trader too. A good Forex broker will also furnish you with a selection of trading tools and educational resources.

Trading platforms give you the ability to open BUY and SELL positions on a variety of different assets. A good platform will give you access to advanced charting. Charting facilities will allow you to follow the markets in real-time and sometimes will give you historical data too. You will be able to add studies and indicators too in order to detect trends, reversals, patterns and hopefully entry and exit points and even generate signals. The purpose of all of these tools is so that you may incorporate trading strategies into your everyday trading. When looking for a platform the following points are the most important when choosing a platform to work with:

  • Accuracy of data
  • Competitive spread
  • Speed of execution
  • User-friendliness
  • Customizability
  • Built-in or installable analysis tools

It may be wise to test out a platform before you use it for trading live. To that end, we have given our traders the opportunity to open a demo account. That will allow you to test drive all platforms first and see which you gel with. A trader really only can be as good as the tools he uses. That’s why it is important to work with a platform that has very little downtime, which executes trades very quickly and is simple enough to use.

About Trading Platforms

In essence, a trading platform is software that links the trader to the broker and also to the relevant markets. Our platforms offer live trading charts, real-time price quotes, and order types that are executed by us, your broker. At AvaTrade you have two options:

1) Using trading software that can be downloaded to your local computer and used directly by you. This software is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

2) The other type is the web based trading software that is run on Java (a popular web language). Highly favoured and accessible from any place that has an internet facility.

We offer platforms for all levels of trader with diverse functionality levels that offer more complex functionality to traders that are more experienced. We also provide third party software for additional tools that allow programme interfaces called APIs. These are offered to you:

  • At no additional costs
  • As additional trading features
  • Order interfaces
  • Historical data
  • Convenient user interface

Our Leading Platforms

Take a look below at our selection of leading forex platforms

  • Innovative auto-execution mirroring system based on signals from experienced traders
  • Wide selection of strategy providers
  • No manual intervention required
  • Fast trade execution and easy to use
  • Direct access to real-time trading data and historical logs
  • Free demo account
Compare Avatrade’s Top Trading Platforms
PlatformDetailsMin. Deposit
MetaTrader4
  • The world’s most popular trading platform
  • Embedded expert advisors and indicators
  • Free demo account
 
AvaOptions
  • Trade 40+ forex pairs, gold & silver call and put options
  • Use embedded tools incl risk manager
  • Free demo account
$1,000
ZuluTrade
  • Wide selection of top traders to follow
  • Use the forex signals received on leading trading platforms
  • Free demo account
$500
Spread Betting (Metatrader4)

 

only for traders from the UK/Ireland

  • Spread bet on the world’s most popular platform
  • Comfortable display of charts and quotes
  • Free demo account
 
MetaTrader 5
  • Latest and most popular multi-asset platform globally
  • Unlimited symbols, 44 Graphical Objects and 38 technical indicators
  • Direct access to Economic Calendar
  • 2 additional tabs in Market Watch with option to view Swaps
  • New Future Orders – Sell Stop Limit and Buy Stop Limit
  • Embedded trading robots and Expert Advisor (EA)
  • Access to copy trading
 
$2000
 

AvaTrade presents a wide-selection of trading platforms for both manual and automated trading. We believe in empowering our traders to make the right choices and feel comfortable in their trading environment. We are confident that you will find a platform that is best suited to your trading style and level of trade knowledge. We recommend you visit our trading for beginners section for more articles on how to trade Forex and CFDs.