eToro – Forex Trading Forum

[Forex101]

Liquidity
The futures market volume is thirty billion dollars, that's peanuts next to Forex. . The Forex market is always liquid, meaning positions can be liquidated and stop orders executed without slippage except in extremely volatile market conditions.
24-Hour Market
Trading begins at 2:15 p.m. EST Sunday, as markets open in Sydney and Singapore. At 7 p.m. EST the Tokyo market opens, followed by London at 2 a.m. EST. And finally, New York opens at 8 a.m. EST and closes at 5 p.m. EST. So, before New York trading closes the Sydney and Singapore markets are back open - it’s a 24 hour seamless market! This allows you to react immediately, imagine important data comes in from England or Japan while the U.S. futures market is closed, imagine how hectic the next trading day could be right from the beginning.

Commission Free Trading
Again, in eToro you only pay the 2 pips spread (or 4 pips for the EUR/JPY)
Price Certainty
In Forex, you get rapid execution and price certainty (under normal conditions). In futures and equities markets you do not receive price certainty or instant trade execution but the rate the last trade was carried on, which might not be the price you will pay.
Guaranteed Limited Risk
In the futures market your position may be liquidated at a loss, in Forex the use of stop losses prevents such a thing from happening.

[wowlwow]

partially true and mostly hype but the currencies dealers and brokerage firms

1st, one must understand the nature on how futures works.
In e-mini S&P alone, there are more than 1 millions contracts traded per day intraday from 9:30 - 4:15 globex regular hours. Cruel oil is about 2 hundred thousands contracts executed per day.
Grains together more than half millions contracts and Bonds and Notes about a millions contract...

Noe, lets compare with Forex. Most currency pairs are minors. Let focus on on Major pairs.
EUR/US, US/CDn, US/AUD, EUR/JPY, US/JPY, US/BP. The most active pair is EUR/US.
Most traders traded it with 100K per lot, in futures term is 1 contract. Each day, EUR/US transact $1 trillions in dollars term. that about 10 millions contracts. However, majority of the transaction are not traded by independence traders nor small trading firms. More than 85% are interbank transactions for businesses to businesses. Other firms dealing another 10%. Only 5% are transacted by traders: Independence, sml or midium size trading firms.

If you put it together as per contract perspective, Futures vol per day is almost identical to currencies pairs vol per day. Except, futures has a more transparent approaches. Traders able to see how's the vol and open ineterest flow during trading sessions, contrast to currencies, traders are 100% blind. No one really know how many vol transacted nor even the real amt or dollars versus Eur flow at any period of time.

Liquidity is always there is another hype. If trader try trade the minor currency pair, the slipage is pretty severe. Meaning, what you see in price is not what you get as in the futures go market in illiquid commodities such as pork bellies or milk.

Regarding commission and fees. Forex always claim that no such thing trading forex. Another hype. The 2 pips per side is actually cost moe then trading futures in self manage account.
Futures, ingeneral cost only less than $20.00 per round turn to as low as $1.50 if trade intraday and direct access to globex. In dollar term, Forex are 4 pips per round turn. Depens on currencies pair. If it multiply by $10 per pip, that's 40 bucks. Pretty heavy in real trading economical sense. that make scalping currencies pair allot harder than trading futures intraday.

Just want to point out the misguilded hype and make sure those who is new to the industrial understand apple to orange is ethical correct.

[annet1983]

what is futures?