The foreign exchange (forex) market is the largest market in the world because currency is changing hands whenever goods and services are traded between nations. The sheer size of the transactions going on between nations provides arbitrage opportunities for speculators, because the currency values fluctuate by the minute. Usually these speculators make many trades for small profits, but sometimes a big position is taken up for a huge profit or, when things go wrong, a huge loss. In this post, we'll look at the greatest currency trades ever made.

In 1987, Andy Krieger, a 32-year-old currency trader at Bankers Trust, was carefully watching the currencies that were rallying against the dollar following the Black Monday crash. As investors and companies rushed out of the American dollar and into other currencies that had suffered less damage in the market crash, there were bound to be some currencies that would become fundamentally overvalued, creating a good opportunity for arbitrage. The currency Krieger targeted was the New Zealand dollar, also known as the kiwi.

Using the relatively new techniques afforded by options, Krieger took up a short position against the kiwi worth hundreds of millions. In fact, his sell orders were said to exceed the money supply of New Zealand. The kiwi dropped sharply as the selling pressure combined with the lack of currency in circulation. It yo-yoed between a 3% and 5% loss while Krieger made millions for his employers.

One part of the legend recounts a worried New Zealand government official calling up Krieger's bosses and threatening Bankers Trust to try to get Krieger out of the kiwi. Krieger later left Bankers Trust to go work for George Soros.

Time will not permit me to continue, but you can check out the rest of the story here; www.proinvestors..com and how you can take advantage of this ever growing 3.5 trillion a day market.