Markets
Forex: what it is, what moves it and how to study it
What it is, what moves it, when it moves and how to practice it on demo before thinking about a live account.
What it is
The market in a sentence
Currency pairs: majors, minors and exotics. It is the market the program starts with because it is the most liquid and the one that best teaches you to read structure and levels.
Instruments HFM lists
- EUR/USD
- GBP/USD
- USD/JPY
- USD/MXN
- AUD/USD
- USD/CAD
Examples taken from HFM's specification tables on October 26, 2026. The instruments available depend on the account type.
See the Forex conditions on hfm.com →What to study
Start with EUR/USD: trading hours, sessions, and how it reacts to inflation and interest rate data.
Be clear on this
Leverage turns a small move into a large loss. Practice position sizing on demo.
What moves it
Three forces worth watching
Interest rates
Central bank decisions and tone change how attractive one currency is against another.
Economic data
Inflation, jobs and growth come out on scheduled dates and often move the price within minutes.
Risk appetite
In times of stress money tends to look for currencies seen as safe havens; in calm periods, for higher-yielding ones.
Sessions
When it moves
It trades Monday to Friday almost around the clock, in three overlapping sessions: Asia, London and New York. The London and New York overlap tends to concentrate more movement.
The exact hours of each instrument are published by HFM and can change.
Live chart
Watch it now
TradingView chart for educational purposes. Prices may differ from those on your HFM platform. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy or sell.
Practice
How to practice it on demo
Pick a single pair (EUR/USD is the natural one), mark its levels on the daily chart and watch for a week how it reacts to the calendar's data.
- 01
Open a demo account
It is free and uses no real money. Request it with the button on this page.
- 02
Mark levels on the daily chart
Support and resistance from the last few weeks. That way you arrive at each session with a map.
- 03
Calculate the size before trading
Use Arco's calculators to set how much you risk per trade; on demo it counts too.
- 04
Write everything down for a week
What you saw, what you did and what happened. The journal is what gets studied, not the balance.
Frequently asked questions
Questions about Forex
What is a major pair and what is an exotic one?
Majors include the US dollar and are the most liquid. Exotics pair a major currency with that of an emerging country and tend to move with bigger jumps. To study, start with the majors.
What is a pip?
It is the unit used to measure a pair's movement; in most pairs it is the fourth decimal place. Arco's pip value calculator tells you what it represents in your account.
Keep exploring
The other markets
Pick this market and watch it for a week on demo.
It is the first exercise of module 3: mark levels every day and write down what happened.