A Foreign Exchange Primer [Hardcover]

Shani Shamah (Author), Shani Beverly Shamah (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470851627 | ISBN-13: 978-0470851623 | Publication Date: April 24, 2003

The foreign exchange market is the largest in the world, with an estimated $1.6 trillion average daily turnover. This book sets out to introduce the novice to the practical skills necessary to understand the foreign exchange market today.

A Foreign Exchange Primer provides a clear understanding of how this market functions, from the main products through to the techniques used, coverage of the main participants, details of the various 'players' and an understanding of the 'jargon' used in everyday dealings.

This concise, highly accessible primer is ideal for anyone new to or wanting to become involved in the foreign exchange market, from a dealing room or sales perspective through to the novice investor. 

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The foreign exchange market is the largest market in the world, with an estimated $1.6 trillion average daily turnover. This book sets out to introduce the novice to the practical skills necessary to understand the foreign exchange market today.

Foreign Exchange Primer provides a clear understanding of how this market functions, from the main products through to the techniques used, coverage of the main participants, details of the various 'players' and an understanding of the 'jargon' used in everyday dealings.

This concise and highly accessible primer, is ideal for anyone new to or wanting to become involved in the foreign exchange market, from a dealing room or sales perspective through to the novice investor.

About the Author

SHANI SHAMAH has spent over twenty years working in the financial markets in a variety of treasury, sales and marketing positions.  She currently works for IFX Markets Ltd in London as Global Head of Sales.  The company specializes in foreign exchange, contracts for difference, base and precious metals, managed investment and financial spread trading.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (April 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470851627
• ISBN-13: 978-0470851623
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,702,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect forex primer!, June 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Foreign Exchange Primer (Hardcover)

Although this book is primarily written for people that are clueless about foreign exchange (FX), it will actually teach the clued-up a thing or two also. The broad range of topics covered is what you'd expect to find in a book that is considerably thicker and more expensive - there's a detailed insight into the marketplace and its participants, the products (spot, forwards, swaps, options), fundamental vs. technical analysis, and more. The author writes in a concise, but extremely readable style and makes extensive use of pictures and diagrams. Furthermore, the book is bang up to date with recent developments in FX, such as the Euro and electronic dealing (that is, at the time I wrote this review). Finally, as an added bonus, this book is not overly biased towards the US or the US dollar, which I feel is especially appropriate for an FX book. Highly recommended!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for the clueless but not for the pros, May 2, 2006

By 

schwarzwald "peripatetic hacker" (San Diego, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Foreign Exchange Primer (Hardcover)

As another reviewer noted, this book is definitely not for people who are ready to study "financial engineering". It is, however, PERFECT for people who want to learn about foreign exchange but don't have a finance background. It does not TRY to be a book for rocket scientists, so criticizing it for that is unfair. More advanced books that have lots of integral and summation signs assume that you already understand the basic information in this book.

This is the only book I have found which explains this important market at a level that practically anyone can understand. I'm a math student doing a mathematical modelling project involving finance and investment and so I needed something like this: I do not know anyone who invests and the simple fact is that most people don't know much about the mechanics of the markets. This book fills in a gap in plain English with little verbosity or unnecessary digressions. Thus, as a basis for gaining intuition and domain knowledge in an undergraduate university project, this book is everything it attempts to be.