"Fixings" what are they, what happens..?

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Hi, last friday, apparantly, there was a big "fixing" at 17:00 CET... I spoke to a person about this, so I have no link to offer. Apparantly, what happens is this: large companies who have foreign exchange exposure, inform their bank (or whatever) that they need to buy X amounts of USD (or other currencies) on a specific date, and they declare that they will be doing it at the prevailing market rate at a specific time, which apparantly was 17:00 CET on friday.... If I am not mistaking, many companies needed to buy USD on friday (but this I am very unsure of, maybe in reality they needed to sell them, dunno) - because they had to make payments for goods in USD (but it could easily have been the other way around, but let's immagine that the companies needed to buy USD.).. If this is the case, then the banks know that they will have to sell usd against other currencies at that time.. So if the banks can buy USD cheaply in the market, they would be able to buy USD low, and sell them at the higher rate... So maybe they have an interest in trading fx. EURUSD up, so they can take a short position (short EUR, long USD) at fx. 1,3100 around 15:00, and then let it trade down before 17:00, and then unload the purchased USD at the higher rate to the companies...

PLEASE NOTE: I am very unsure about how this whole thing works, but I am quite sure that it is actually occuring in the industry...And that big players use this flow info to take positions - but I am not sure that my attempt at a a description above is correct in any way... I don't know what the companies might be doing in terms of forward outright trades to cover themselves, but that is a little besides the point.

Does anyone know anything about this? I would like to understand thie phenomenon better. Obviously, I am looking to understand how it might be used to take a speculative trading position....

I've heard that there is a London fixing at noon EST and a Tokyo fix around 7pm or 8pm EST, so I'm sure there are others. The fixing is supposed to become the official exchange rate for the day, like what's printed in the papers, and I would bet your right about the banks taking a speculative position if they know they have an order coming up and they can drive the price down or up in order to profit from it, but how do you hear about all the large orders to take advantage of it?

What is LIBOR?

Libor stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate and is the rate of interest at which banks borrow funds from each other, in marketable size, in the London interbank market.
What is BBA LIBOR?

BBA LIBOR is the most widely used "benchmark" or reference rate for short term interest rates. It is compiled by the BBA in conjunction with Reuters and released to the market shortly after 11.00am London time each day.
Where is the BBA LIBOR standard used?

BBA LIBOR is the primary benchmark for short term interest rates globally. It is used as the basis for settlement of interest rate contracts on many of the world’s major futures and options exchanges (including LIFFE, Deutsche Term Börse, Euronext, SIMEX and TIFFE) as well as most Over the Counter (OTC) and lending transactions.

regards
daytrading

Front-running would be the easiest method to profit from knowing the upcoming price a large order would be put in to the market, Simple, easier than brushing your teeth in the morning. But only if you could regularly find out this kind of info, which is very very unlikely....

it almost sounds like a pre-planned arbitrage. sounds really interesting. there might even be a way to take advantage of this fact if you knew about it before hand. i'm gonna look into it some more. very interesting.

The question isnt 'how it might be used', the question is 'where to get the reliable info'. Nobody is going to give it away because it means a worse price for the Individual or Company wanting to exchange.

You wont find what your looking for unless you have very good conections. Anybody with a better rep want to try explaining this, nobody seems to hear me on this forum.

Leon