Currency Trading vs Stock Investments

When buying stocks you're making an investment in a company. Buying shares is short for 'purchasing a share of ownership'. By contrast, no one is making an investment in Japan by buying yen. We leave aside politically motivated actions by large central governments. Currency is exchanged in order to facilitate the movement of goods and the payment of services between multiple countries, but that's a relatively small percentage of the total $2 trillion daily volume. The largest amount is simple speculation.