Spot and forward trading-Swaps

Spot and forward trading-Swaps

When you trade foreign exchange you are always quoted a spot price valued 2 business days in advance. This is under normal conditions where there are no bank holidays in the traded currencies countries or is not over a weekend. If you trade on Monday it is valued Wednesday. If you trade on Friday it is valued Tuesday.
Forward trading is making the opposite trade of a spot trade in a given period of time. Often investors will swap their trades forward for anywhere from a week or two up to several months depending on the time frame of the investment. Most common is one-day rollovers, keeping a spot position overnight. These overnight positions are technically one-day forwards. It is very important to know what interest you paying if short and what interest you are receiving if long when keeping an overnight position. Even though a forward trade is on a future date, the position can be closed out at any time. The closing part of the position is then swapped forward to the same future value date.
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