What do you think about currency trading?

Ah, the standard crowd that says currency trading is too risky, or that stocks are better, or get a job. Anything you do has risks, the question is, are you willing to take the risks?

The one poster said the currency trading is too risky and stocks are better. Why? If you lost $1000 in stocks an $1000 in currencies, which is risker? Based on dollar losses, they both carry the same risk.

A job. What guarantee do you have that you'll have a job tomorrow? The company could fold, or your job could be outsourced.

You can make money in currencies just as well as in equities or anything else. The reason the most posters say currencies are too risky is because they (1) don't have a full grasp of investing, (2) are amateurs who think they are pros and (3) have very low risk tolerance levels.

You can lose money in stocks and currencies. The difference is that the "children" play in the stock market, the "big boys" play in the currency markets.

Take a gander at this: In the equities markets, you have 1600 issues on the NYSE ALONE. When you take into consideration the global equities markets, you're talking about 40,000 issues. Do you have the time to research all those stocks? Second, how do you know the corporate directors aren't fudging the numbers? It happened with Enron and Broadcom. The daily dollar volume traded on the NYSE is about $40 billion/day. In the global equities market, it's about $200 billion/day.

Now, look at currencies: There are only 6 major currency pairs, a lot less information to process. Yes, governments can fudge the numbers, but it is much harder to do. The daily dollar volume of currency traded in the FX market is (get this) $2 TRILLION/day and that is a low estimate, they think it's more like $6 trillion/day.

You have to be just as smart to trade equities as you do currencies. With equities, you have to look at the fundamentals and technicals, you need to research the company's financials, review their new product lines, etc. With currencies you have to look at the technicals and fundamentals also. With currencies, you have to look at interest rates, trade deficits/surpluses, etc.

In other words, you are going to have to do research in both areas, just that in the equities markets take all the research you need to do and then multiply that by 40,000 (number of issues world wide). With currencies take all the research and multiply is by 7 (that's 6 major world currencies plus the dollar, the pairs are EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY).

The only reason currencies are riskier is because you have leverage. Leverage only becomes bad when you misuse it and don't respect it.

The key to successful trading regardless of whether it's equities, currencies or widgets is to learn, learn, learn; practice, practice, practice and DISCIPLINE.

If you want to trade currencies, go for it. And you don't need $1 billion to start off with. Take $200, open a mini account and trade.

That's another plus, with currencies, you can start off with as little as $100. With equities, isn't the minium like $5000. Plus, virtually every FX broker has a demo account that trades and executes exactly like the real think, you're just using virtual money. As a matter of fact, you use the exact same trading platform in the demo account that you would in a live account. When you log into the trading platform, you just specify if you want to trade the demo account or the live account.