Open Live Account
Try on Demo
Trading Fees
Forex
EUR/USD
USD/JPN
USD/GBP
CFDs on Stocks
Apple
Amazon
Tesla
CFDs on Crypto
USD/BTC
USD/ETH
JPY/BTC
- These two markets are the most popular among millions of traders internationally
- Key points are Gains, Trading Styles, Researching, Monetary Support, Diversity, and Volatility
- Stocks have more long-term growth potential than currencies
- The stock market is not as highly leveraged as the Forex market
Forex vs Stocks - Which Is Better?
Forex vs stocks explained: stocks are traded in the long-term, while Forex in the short-term.
The foreign exchange market and the stock market are the two most popular financial markets around the world. It is very difficult to say which one is better to start investing money in because it depends on the individual retail traders’ trading goals, preferences, and financial capacities. We can only outline the key advantages and disadvantages and hope that you identify the best one for yourself.
But don’t get too excited. The risks are pretty much identical in both of these markets. Either one could lead to financial ruin if not dealt with carefully.
The biggest factors you should consider when choosing between stocks and FX are potential gains, trading styles, time spent on research, leverage, diversity of assets and of course, volatility.
In this Forex to stocks comparison, we will be focusing on these factors and try to analyze each of them in a detailed way.
Liquidity
Usually, liquidity is the reason why a lot of traders choose to trade in the foreign exchange market because the latter has a way higher level of liquidity compared to the stock market. This is mostly due to the fact that FX trading is done on currencies, which is already the end-product of liquidity so to say. While stocks are simply assets that are required to be turned into currency to be given a liquidity factor. Because of this, we can easily say that in terms of liquidity, the FX market is a clear winner.Trading Style
The biggest focus for our Forex trading compared to the stocks market argument is, of course, the trading style. Not every trader is “destined” to trade in either one or the other. But there are some distinctive differences between the two markets that attract different kinds of traders. For example, the stock market is mostly designed for long-term and calculated investments, while the Forex market is usually much more volatile and rewards short-term trades. Furthermore, stocks can be used as a “salary” of sorts. You see there are different types of stocks out there, one of them being “dividend stocks”. These particular assets give you a percentage of the yearly yield of the company they belong to. For example, the highest dividend rates are around 20%. This means that if you own $1000’s worth of stocks in the company, you get $200 every year.Research
Our trading Forex vs stocks discussion continues. In this section, we will focus on the necessary time spent on researching a particular trade or a sequence of trades.
Most traders are involved with the markets as a hobby rather than an actual profession or their main source of income. Therefore, the time they spend on researching each trade is very important whether they keep trading or find a different side hustle.
Luckily, we can easily say that stock trading is much more time-efficient than Forex trading in all shapes and forms. The main reasons being that stocks are usually affected by only one source (the specific company’s performance), while currencies are affected by a myriad of different factors (inflation, unemployment, etc).
We believe that if researching one particular stock takes around 1 hour, researching one currency pair would take around 5 hours.
Leverage
The stock market is not as highly leveraged as the FX market. To be exact, the maximum that leverage in FX can reach is probably 1:1000+, while most stock brokers limit their maximum leverage to around 1:4. It’s not that hard to notice just how much of a difference there is between these two markets. This fact alone could lead some to say that Forex vs stock investment isn’t even a discussion due to how much more you get from FX, but that’s not the end of the story. You see, the rate and size at which currency pairs grow are much smaller than how stocks grow. For example, a stock price doubling over a week is not unheard of, while a currency pair doing the same is simply impossible. The maximum you can expect a currency pair to grow over a week or so is maybe 0.01 units.Diversity
Another important factor in comparing these two financial markets is the diversification of the trading opportunities. Probably one of the best advantages of the stock market is that it has a wide variety of stocks that can be traded. There are thousands of stocks that traders can look up in the market. This is a key factor for people who are looking for more diverse opportunities to trade with.
On the other hand, the foreign exchange market is not as attractive as the latter in terms of diversification of trading assets. This is because this market is all about trading different currencies so the list is not as wide as the number of companies in the stock market. Consequently, while talking about Forex vs stocks pros and cons, stocks have more advantages in terms of more trading opportunities.