The Concept of Leverage
What is leverage? |
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Leverage allows traders to borrow money and use that money to invest in the foreign exchange market. Because of leverage, clients without a huge amount of capital are able to make large investments, whereas in other markets such as the equities market, clients would have to pay 50% of the full amount for each share of stock they were investing in. Most market makers allow positions to be leveraged up to 100:1. This means that if a trader wanted to buy a "lot" worth $100,000, with 100:1 leverage the trader only has to put up $1,000.
Leverage is about risk. Increasing your leverage increases both your opportunity to take bigger profits AND rack up bigger losses.
