Currency trading is done on a much greater scale than any other type of market in the world. Some 1.9 trillion dollars are handled every single day. About 73 percent of all currency trading is done by 10 global financial institutions with names you’re familiar with: Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and so forth. Local banks and other financial institutions account for another chunk of forex trading, and transactions by “day traders” — regular individuals, people like you and me — account for only 2 percent of the total.