Why Forex? Why not Stocks, Real Estate or just plain old any Business?

The largest traded market in the world is not the Dow Jones, Nikkei or the London Stock Exchange. It's in fact the Forex market and it's bigger than all of the world's stock markets combined, many times over. Over 2 trillion dollars, and that's USD2,000,000,000,000.00 just in case any of us are in doubt as to the magnitude of this market, change hands everyday in this largest, most liquid, crodd-border market! So make sure you get a piece of the pie, yeah?

Unparalelled Liquidity
Forex offers you unparalelled liquidity not available anywhere else in the world! It is estimated that more than $3.2 trillion worth of trades exchange hands everyday. It is the only true 24-hour round the clock market as it stays open anytime of the day or night or any time in between. Trades are conducted just about every minute of the day from early Mondays through late Fridays!

The stock market, by comparison, is only open 8:00am through 5:00pm every Monday through Friday and so do most businesses. Without a central market, real estate faces an additional challenge of meeting willing buyer and willing seller.

Uncomparable Leverage
The Forex market allows for uncomparable leverage ranging from a low of 100:1 or 1%to as high as 400:1 or just 0.25% thus enabling traders to effect trades worth upto $400,000 with a capital investment of just $1,000! So doubling your capital with a single trade is indeed very possible. (A word of warning! Higher leverage could also lead to higher risk if not well-managed)

In the stock market, you usually need to pay up your trades' worth within the next 3 + 3 days unless you are able to sell off your stocks or unless you are prepared to incur losses when prices head south. In Real Estate, at least, you'd be able to secure a deal with a downpayment of 10% or more PROVIDED you can get a bank to finance the rest of your purchase. In business, this get less rosy as your investments are not entirely capital where operational costs can eat into your investments sooner than you can carve out a profit!

Commission-free
In Forex, you can be assured to almost never be charged any commission or fee on trades you make. There are brokerages that charge a commission with every trade but that is far from being the norm. In any case, you can always choose to ignore them and stick with those that are commission-free. Your only cost is the paper-thin bid and ask spread.

You typically pay your stock brokers 2.5% for every trade you enter into or exit. Your Real Estate agent gets paid 2% for concluding a deal. If you have invested in trust funds then you would know that there is a roughly 5% spread which you incur when you enter into or exit a trade. By comparison, the Bid/Ask spread in Forex is often negligible as in the case of GBP/USD at 1.4424/1.4428 which is only 0.03% both ways.

Low Risk, Low Entry Requirement

You can open a live trading account from as low as USD250 and get straight down into business. Now try to top that in any other business or investments! I know many of us have heard of people investing in foreclosures with no money down but even then you've got to be prepared to fork out a handsome sum in refurbishing the homes. Then, and only then, do you start to find your buyers. Of course, if you're looking to make big money a higher investment is not only necessary but prudent to protect your trades and plan your strategies.

Havng said this, Forex is not without risks and the higher leverage you put on your investment capital obviously the higher the risk you're exposing yourself to. However, your risk is limited by the amount of capital in your live trading account.

Makes Money both ways
In Forex it doesn't matter if a market is going up or goind down as you can opt for either a long or short position. So, you make money both ways.

When you buy a stock you better pray it heads north as any southward movement will translate into losses. Unless you short-sell a stock which, by the way, is illegal. And, I bet you've never heard of anyone who's made money when property prices goes down.

Ready Market
In Forex, you are essentially selling and buying currencies of nations at the same time. And because of this you can rest assured that you will always always have a willing buyer willing seller situation at prevailing market prices, especially if and when you are trading major currencies.

When you trade stocks of a company, it may not be so easy to find a willing buyer or seller at a price that both you and the other party are willing to trade. The same goes for real estate or any given business. Even finding buyers for products may prove quite a challenge during a down economy.

Forex forREAL