Is Forex Gambling?

Hi folks! how's your currency trading business going? I hope it is profitable from month to month so that we can preserve and appreciate our wealth in this era of yet to crumble fiat currency.

I feel called to write on this topic as I know many Jews, Christian, Muslim believers out there are asking this question and probably have avoided forex as a mean to preserve their wealth in believe that it is gambling. So let's try to analyze, understand and answer this question.

Gambling defined in www.dictionary.com is as follows:

[gam-bling]

noun

1. the activity or practice of playing at a game of chance formoney or other stakes.

2. the act or practice of risking the loss of something important by taking a chance or acting recklessly

Now we have a defintion, let's try to analyze this 3 scenarios and see if they are gambling.

1. Lottery, Jackpot, Slot Machine, Roulette, Poker and the likes

These are among the most popular gaming instrument and it is beyond doubt playing them is gambling as the outcome of the lottery, slot machine, et cetera is of pure chance. There is no reason for example 3524 to be the winning number for the week other than chance.

2. Sports events like soccer, football, golf, horse race and the likes

Let say we went to a stadium, paid a ticket to watch some football or soccer. While waiting for the game to start, there is a bookie who asked if we would like to place a bet on which team is going to win. Placing a bet then is a gambling since we took a chance on who is going to win the game. In this example, the sports event has become a gambling instrument.

3. Currency exchange

In an effort to preserve and appreciate our wealth, we exchange our currency in possession to another expectedly appreciating currency. In view of depreciating USD for example, we exchange our USD to another expectedly appreciating currency for example like the Yen, CNY, BRL, SGD or any other currency that we expect to appreciate. The expected appreciation of the currency of choice are with reasons such as rising GDP, rising export et cetera. The currency did not appreciate or depreciate by chance. So forex by itself is not gambling. Could it be a gambling instrument? It sure can. How?

When we treat it like gambling not like a business. No trading plan, no risk management, no trading process and procedure, no analysis and simply trade on chance.

Remember, this is a business of a bank as a bank does have a treasury department to manage the bank capital through short term investment, among others, like money market because the problem with fiat currency is changing perception. Unlike gold is a gold is a gold anywhere. So it is inevitable for banks to trade their currencies in possession to at least preserve their capital.

Therefore, to free our trading from gambling, we must treat it like a business as if we are working for our family bank complete with business plan, risk management, and trading procedure.