Trading Times - The Forex
market is open 24 hours a day (except weekends) which means that in the US it
opens at 3:00 pm Sunday (EST) and closes Friday at 5:00 (EST), allowing active
traders to choose the times they want to trade. Commodities trading hours are
all over the board depending on which commodity you are trading. Including
extended trading times US stocks can be traded from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm (ET) on
weekdays.
Leverage - Depending on your Forex
account size, your leverage may be 100:1, although there are
Forex brokers that offer leverage of
up to 400:1 (not that I would ever recommend that kind of leverage). Leverage in
the stock market can be as high as 4:1, and in the commodities market, leverage
varies with the commodity traded but it can be quite high. Because the commodity
markets are not as liquid as the Forex
market, its leverage is inherently riskier. Although I was never shut out of a
commodity trade by the day limit, the fear was always in the back of my mind.
