Forex versus Stocks

24-Hour Market

The Forex market is a seamless 24-hour market. Most brokers are open from Sunday at 2PM EST until Friday at 4 PM EST with customer service available 24/7. With the ability to trade during the U.S., Asian, and European market hours, you can customize your own trading schedule.

Commission Free Trading

Most Forex brokers charge no commission or additional transactions fees to trade currencies online or over the phone. Combined with the tight, consistent, and fully transparent spread, Forex trading costs are lower than those of any other market. The brokers are compensated for theirs services through the bid/ask prices.

Instantaneous Execution of Market Orders

Your trades are instantly executed under normal market conditions. You also have price certainty on every market order under normal market conditions. What you click is the price you get. You’re able to execute directly off real-time streaming prices (Yeeeaah!). There's no discrepancy between the displayed price shown on the platform and the execution price to enter your trade. Keep in mind that most brokers only guarantee stop, limit, and entry orders are only guaranteed under normal market conditions. Fills are instantaneous most of the time, but under extraordinarily volatile market conditions order execution may experience delays.

Short-Selling without an Uptick

Unlike the equity market, there is no restriction on short selling in the currency market. Trading opportunities exist in the currency market regardless of whether a trader is long or short, or which way the market is moving. Since currency trading always involves buying one currency and selling another, there is no structural bias to the market. So you always have equal access to trade in a rising or falling market.

No Middlemen

Centralized exchanges provide many advantages to the trader. However, one of the problems with any centralized exchange is the involvement of middlemen. Any party located in between the trader and the buyer or seller of the security or instrument traded will cost them money. The cost can be either in time or in fees. Spot currency trading does away with the middlemen and allows clients to interact directly with the market-maker responsible for the pricing on a particular currency pair. Forex traders get quicker access and cheaper costs.

Buy/Sell programs do not control the market

How many times have you heard that "fund A" was selling "X" or buying "Z"? Rumor had it that the funds were taking profits because of the end of the financial year or because today is "triple witching day", all as an explanation of why this stock is up or the market in general is down or positive on the session. The stock market is very susceptible to large fund buying and selling.

In spot trading, the liquidity of the Forex market makes the likelihood of any one fund or bank to control a particular currency very slim. Banks, hedge funds, governments, retail currency conversion houses and large net-worth individuals are just some of the participants in the spot currency markets where the liquidity is unprecedented.

Analysts and brokerage firms are less likely to influence the market

Have you watched TV lately? Heard about a certain Internet stock and an analyst of a prestigious brokerage firm accused of keeping its recommendations, such as "buy" when the stock was rapidly declining? It is the nature of these relationships. No matter what the government does to step in and discourage this type of activity, we have not heard the last of it.

IPO's are big business for both the companies going public and the brokerage houses. Relationships are mutually beneficial and analysts work for the brokerage houses that need the companies as clients. That catch-22 will never disappear.

Foreign exchange, as the prime market, generates billions in revenue for the world's banks and is a necessity of the global markets. Analysts in foreign exchange don't drive the deal flow, they just analyze the forex market.

8,000 stocks versus 4 major currency pairs

There are approximately 4,500 stocks listed on the New York Stock exchange. Another 3,500 are listed on the NASDAQ. Which one will you trade? Got the time to stay on top of so many companies? In spot currency trading, there are dozens of currencies traded, but the majority of the market trades the 4 major pairs. Aren’t four pairs much easier to keep an eye on than thousands of stocks? I’d say so.