One of the most popular forex trading strategies that is used by major traders today is based on fundamental analysis, where the trader looks for trading signals based on announcements by central banks such as the Federal Reserve. If a central bank makes a key policy decision such as changing the interest rate, this can have a big impact on the value of a currency in the foreign exchange market and can therefore provide the trader with a reliable trading signal.
The central bank that traders pay the most attention to is the Federal Reserve, since the US dollar is the most widely used currency in the world. All of the major currency pairs offered by forex brokers today which have the lowest spreads all have a US dollar component, and so any fundamental announcement by the Federal Reserve can present the trader with multiple trading opportunities across major currency pairs. .
One popular way to find trading signals based on central bank announcements is based on the interest rate and whether the central bank decides to add or subtract basis points from the current interest rate. Since many of the biggest foreign exchange participants are banks and institutions, they will often deal with each other using a trade known as the carry trade which is based on the interest rate differential between two different currencies.