Trade on a 24-Hour Market:
The Forex is a true 24-hour market, traded continuously from 5:00 P.M. ET on Sunday to 5:00 pm on Friday est. With three distinct trading sessions in the US, Europe and Asia, you can trade on your own schedule.
Up to 200:1 Leverage:
With more buying power, you can increase your total return on investment with less cash outlay. Of course, increasing leverage also increases risk. With $1,000 cash in a margin account that allows 200:1 leverage (.5%), you can trade up to $200,000 in notional value.
When traded properly with stops in place this massive amount of leveraging allows for the possibility of large percentage gains on your account with minimal risk.
Commission Free Trading:
Most Forex is commission free and does not involve 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.
Limited Pairings:
More than 85% of all daily transactions involve only 7 currencies and out of these seven there are only four major pairings. As opposed to the approximately 4,500 stocks listed on the NYSE.
These seven currencies are commonly known as the Majors, and include the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar. The limited number of pairings allows traders to selectively focus on a handful of major crosses instead of hundreds of different stocks.