Do you need a stockbroker account to trade forex?

Q: Do you need a stockbroker account to trade forex?

Or can you just walk into a bank and say you want $200 worth of new Zealand money, like what you do when you go on holidays overseas. Then you sit in it for a while then you trade it in to the bank.
Or do you need to go through a stockbroker? 

A: Best Answer: 

Yes, to trade forex, you need a forex broker, not a "stock" broker. 

Forex Tutorial: Introduction to Currency Trading 
http://www.investopedia.com/university/forexmarket/#axzz1fXzhdv68

Currency Trading – FOREX – Foreign Currency Exchange 

1. EUR/USD - Euro/U.S. Dollar 
2. GBP/USD - Great British Pound/U.S. Dollar 
3. USD/CHF –- U.S. Dollar/Swiss Franc 
4. USD/JPY –- U.S. Dollar/Japanese Yen 
5. USD/CAD –- U.S. Dollar/Canadian Dollar 
6. AUD/USD - Australian Dollar/U.S. Dollar 
7. EUR/GBP - Euro/Great British Pound 
8. EUR/JPY - Euro/Japanese Yen 
9. EUR/CHF - Euro/Swiss Franc 
10. GBP/CHF - Great British Pound/Swiss Franc 
11. GBP/JPY - Great British Pound/Japanese Yen 
12. CHF/JPY - Swiss Franc/Japanese Yen 
13. NZD/USD - New Zealand Dollar/US Dollar 
14. EUR/CAD - Euro/Canadian Dollar 
15. AUD/CAD - Australian Dollar/Canadian Dollar 
16. AUD/JPY - Australian Dollar/Japanese Yen 
17. EUR/AUD - Euro/Australian Dollar 
NOTE: Of the above 17 currency pairs, six of them are deemed the “major currency pairs” in the FOREX market because they account for about 80 percent of FOREX transactions: 

1. EUR/USD - Euro/U.S. Dollar 
2. GBP/USD - Great British Pound/U.S. Dollar 
3. USD/CHF –- U.S. Dollar/Swiss Franc 
4. USD/JPY –- U.S. Dollar/Japanese Yen 
5. USD/CAD –- U.S. Dollar/Canadian Dollar 
6. AUD/USD - Australian Dollar/U.S. Dollar 

As you can see, there is a currency on the left and one on the right. The one on the left is referred to as the base, and the one listed on the right is known as the cross. The format, once again, is as follows. BASE/CROSS, or EUR/USD. The EUR is the BASE and the USD is the CROSS. 

TERMINOLOGY: 
• PIPS- Price Interest Point. This is the smallest unit price for any Foreign Currency. 
• LOT- A lot of currency is one denomination for a trade (100K or mini account). This is similar to purchasing one stock or one contract in the futures market. 
• LONG to buy 
• SHORT to sell 
• BID-The price at which you sell 
• ASK-The price at which you buy 

Price Interest Point - (PIP) 
Profits are made in the FOREX by gaining PIPS. A pip is the last digit from the decimal point. This value is 1/100th of a cent. You may now be asking yourself, how do I make money off of 1/100th of a cent? The answer is leverage. The FOREX market is highly leveraged and should be respected. That said, it can also provide for a tremendous return on your investment. The average leverage in the FOREX is 100 to 1. Basically this indicates that for every dollar you invest in a trade you are controlling $100 of value. 

Calculated PIP 
Calculated PIP – shows the Price Interest Point (PIP) value for the selected currency pair based upon your trading account margin. For example, a standard 1 percent margin trading account controlling $100,000 in currency would show the EUR/USD with a PIP value of 10. 
PIP VALUE-Fixed or Floating 
FIXED- When the USD is the cross currency (right side of the pair), the PIP value is fixed at $10 in a 100k account. 
FOATING- When the USD is the base currency (left side of the pair), the PIP value is based upon the exchange rate of the cross currency (i.e., USD/CAD.). Also, the PIP value is floating when the pair consists of foreign currencies (i.e., EUR/ GBP). 

LOT 
A lot is the normal unit of trading in the FOREX market. Trades are made in lot increments, similar to share increments in the stock market. 
Standard (or 100k) FOREX account- has a 100:1 leverage ratio 
1 LOT= $1,000 investment= ratio leveraged 100 to 1, which = $100,000 in buying power. 
Mini FOREX account- has a 200:1 leverage ratio 
1 LOT= $50 investment= ratio leveraged 200 to 1, which = $10,000 in buying power.

Souce : Yahoo