Clearly, there are large amounts of money to be made trading foreign exchange. The forex market is a game in which there are many experienced, well-capitalized, professional traders who do nothing else but trade currencies full time. An inexperienced retail trader has a significant information disadvantage compared to these traders. Retail traders are undercapitalized. In a fair game - one with no information advantages - between two players that continues until one trader goes broke - the player with the lower amount of capital has a highest likelihood of going broke first. Since the retail trader is effectively playing against the market as a whole - which has an almost unlimited supply of capital - he will almost certainly go broke.
The retail trader always pays the bid/ask spread making his odds of winning lower. Additional costs may include margin interest, or if a spot position is kept open for more than one day the trade must be "resettled" each day, costing the full bid/ask spread every day. Even people running the trading shops warn clients against trying to time the market. "If 15% of day traders are profitable,' says Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, 'I'd be surprised." Source - Wall Street Journal
The retail brokers encourage individual traders to trade extremely large positions by offering high leverages, sometimes as high as 200:1. This increases the trading volume cleared by the broker, therfore his profits, but increases the risk that the trader will receive a margin call or a closed account. Professional currency dealers - banks, hedge funds et al, rarely use more than 10:1 leverage.
The US government regulating body for the Foreign Exchange Market the “National Futures Association” warns traders in a Forex Training presentation of the risk in trading currency. “As stated at the beginning of this program, off-exchange foreign currency trading carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all customers. The only funds that should ever be used to speculate in foreign currency trading, or any type of highly speculative investment, are funds that represent risk capital; in other words, funds you can afford to lose without affecting your financial situation
The retail trader always pays the bid/ask spread making his odds of winning lower. Additional costs may include margin interest, or if a spot position is kept open for more than one day the trade must be "resettled" each day, costing the full bid/ask spread every day. Even people running the trading shops warn clients against trying to time the market. "If 15% of day traders are profitable,' says Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, 'I'd be surprised." Source - Wall Street Journal
The retail brokers encourage individual traders to trade extremely large positions by offering high leverages, sometimes as high as 200:1. This increases the trading volume cleared by the broker, therfore his profits, but increases the risk that the trader will receive a margin call or a closed account. Professional currency dealers - banks, hedge funds et al, rarely use more than 10:1 leverage.
The US government regulating body for the Foreign Exchange Market the “National Futures Association” warns traders in a Forex Training presentation of the risk in trading currency. “As stated at the beginning of this program, off-exchange foreign currency trading carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all customers. The only funds that should ever be used to speculate in foreign currency trading, or any type of highly speculative investment, are funds that represent risk capital; in other words, funds you can afford to lose without affecting your financial situation
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