In order to trade stocks, a trader needs to have quite a significant amount of capital in his account, at least a few tens of thousands in general. However, a forex trader can start trading with an account of only a few hundreds dollars. This is because forex trading allows for higher leverage. A forex trader could obtain larger transaction compared to stock market. Some forex brokers offers 100:1, 200:1 or 400:1. A leverage of 100:1 means that a US$1k in account could obtain a 100 times transaction value at US$100k. There is no interest charge for the leveraged money. Stock trading generally allows for not more than 2 times leverage in margin trading. There are interest charges associated with margin trading.
Data Transparency & Analysis Overload
There are thousands of different stocks in different industries. trader needs to research many stocks and picks the best few to trade. There are many factors that affect the stock prices. There are much more factors that may affects stock price than foreign currency exchange rates. The forex traders therefore can focus on few currency pairs to trade. On top of that, most data or news affecting currency exchange rate are announced officially, scheduled and in a transparent manner. Retail forex traders therefore have better chances of success than retail stock traders.
Bear/Bull Stock Market Conditions
Forex traders can trade in both way buying or selling currency pairs without any restrictions. However, stock traders have more constraints to trade and profit in bear market condition. There are more restrictions and costs associated with stock short selling. In a bull market when the economy is doing well, stock traders have a high chance of profitability if they buy stock first then sell it later. Savvy forex traders however, could operate in all market conditions.
