Monday, November 24, 2008

3 Advantages Of Forex Trading Over Stock Investing

By: Christopher M Lee
In these turbulent times, a lot of investment opportunities are fast becoming questionable sources of making your money grow. The recent stock market crisis has shown that a lot of investors are hesitant to invest in stocks and commodities because of how bad the economy has been hit. So it makes sense for investors to seek other alternatives for their investment opportunities, and if you happen to be amongst them, this article will tell you 3 advantages of Forex trading over stock investing. By the end of this article, you should seriously consider putting your money into Forex trading while the stock market recovers.

One of the similarities between Forex and stocks is that a trader would have control over a large amount of the particular currency they’ve invested in by putting up a small margin. The difference with Forex however is that the margin requirements for Forex is far lower than stocks. Where the margin for stock trading is 50% of the total value, Forex margin requirements only stand at 1%. This means that with Forex, a trader’s money would be able to play with 50-times as much value of whatever product he might have invested in if he were to trade stocks. However, do remember that even though the requirements seem favourable to you, it is still an investment, and thus it would be prudent for you to be aware and have a full understanding of the risks involved.
Another advantage that Forex has over stock investing is that the Forex market is not susceptible to the Bear versus Bull mentality that the stock market is prone to. Because Forex trading is simply the exchange of currencies, a Forex trader will always have an investment opportunity to look forward to, because if a currency isn’t performing well, it could mean that there is a likelihood of making a profit with another currency. Also, the Forex market, when compared to the stock market, is not negatively affected by fluctuations in interest rates. Typically when a country’s interest rate rises, its currency would be strengthened, but conversely the rise in interest rates more than often affects the stock market adversely.

The third reason why you should consider Forex trading over stocks is the fact that keeping up with stocks can induce a headache if you were to personally keep track of your own investment portfolio, especially if you have your hand in a lot of stocks. Think about it; if you put together the stocks in both NASDAQ and NYSE, the total number of stock issues amounts to eight thousand. That is a lot of options to consider, and keeping up with all of them can be time consuming. In comparison, Forex trading only involves four major currencies and approximately around thirty-four second tier currencies that you need to consider. Not a whole lot of choices sure, but they aren’t that big of a headache to keep up with either. The only thing you need to keep in mind is how those currencies are doing in relation to the health of their countries’ economies.

In actuality, there are more advantages to Forex trading when compared to stock investing. If you’re still not convinced after reading this article, do a more in-depth research online. You might just learn that Forex trading is far more advantageous than trading stocks, especially in today’s economy.

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