Great Foreign Currency Resource

It goes without saying that understanding foreign currency markets is a vital part of international investing. But where do you begin?

Type in “forex” in Google and you’ll get a gazillion results. Sure, there’s some good stuff out there, but there is also an enormous amount of junk, spam and scam artistry.

The Brown Brothers Harriman Foreign Exchange page is the needle in the haystack. BBH is one of Wall Street’s oldest private partnerships. Prescott Bush - W’s grandaddy - was once a Brown Brothers partner. Conspiracy theorists may recognize the firm for its links to the Russell Trust Association, better known as Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones society.

And yet, for a 200 year-old institution, BBH is surprisingly Web-savvy. You can download daily PDF currency market commentaries, weekly reports, and other long-term thought pieces. Marc Chandler, the firm’s currency strategist, also maintains his own blog and is a Seeking Alpha contributor.

BBH also has impressive street cred when it comes to currencies. You can see their industry rankings here, which include a couple of #1 awards in 2008.

That doesn’t mean all their calls will be perfect. Nor will the site make you a currency guru yourself. But I’d venture to say that reading BBH’s stuff on a regular basis, coupled with a little additional homework on your own, will make you better informed than the vast majority of folks looking for get-rich-quick forex trading schemes.