BookRix

Disadvantages for Passive Investors

Passive investors seldom make money in the forex market. The first reason is that returns to passively holding foreign currencies are low, similar to the money market. If you think about it, that makes sense. When U.S. investors buy euros in the forex market, they are really investing in the EU's money market. Money markets around the world generally have low expected returns, and so does forex.

The benefits of the forex market for active traders are usually useless or even harmful for passive investors. Low trading costs mean very little if you do not trade very much. Using high leverage without a stop-loss order can lead to large losses. On the other hand, using stop-loss orders essentially turns an investor into an active trader.

Getting Started With Forex

The forex market was once much less accessible to average investors, but getting started is easy now. Many large brokerages, such as Fidelity, offer forex trading to their customers. Specialized forex brokers, such as OANDA, make sophisticated tools available to traders with balances as low as one dollar.

SPONSOREDStart with $30 trading bonusTrade forex and CFDs on stock indices, commodities, stocks, metals and energies with a licensed and regulated broker. For all clients who open their first real account, XM offers a $30 trading bonus to test the XM products and services without any initial deposit needed. Learn more about how you can trade over 1000 instruments on the XM MT4 and MT5 platforms from your PC and Mac, or from a variety of mobile devices.