The nature of the items being bought and sold between forex trading and stocks trading are different. In stocks trading, a trader is buying or selling a share in a specific company in a country. There are many different stock markets in the world. Many factors determine the rise or fall of a stock price. Refer to my article in under stock section to find more information about the factors that affect stock prices. Forex trading involves buying or selling of currency pairs. In a transaction, a trader buys a currency from one country, and sells the currency from another country. Therefore the term "exchange". The trader is hoping that the value of the currency that he buys will rise with respect to the value of the currency that he sells. In essence, a forex trader is betting on the economic prospect (or at least her monetary policy) of one country against another country.
Market Size & Liquidity
Forex market is the largest market in the world. With daily transactions of over US$4 trillion, it dwarfs the stock markets. While there are thousands of different stocks in the stock markets, there are only a few currency pairs in the forex market. Therefore, forex trading is less prone to price manipulation by big players than stock trading. Huge market volume also means that the currency pairs enjoy greater liquidity than stocks. A forex trader can enter and exit the market easily. Stocks comparatively is less liquid, a trader may find problem exiting the market especially during major bad news. This is worse especially for small-cap stocks. Also due to its huge liquidity of forex market, forex traders can enjoy better price spread as compared to stock traders.
