Forex	Stocks	Futures
Size & Liquidity	Largest and most liquid market in the world	Liquidity dependent on stock's daily volume	Liquidity dependent on month of traded contract
Execution Speed	Minimum slippage & order errors	Less liquidity, more room for slippage and error	Less liquidity, more room for slippage and error
Hours of Operation	24-hour trading action for 5.5 days a week	Less than 7 hours trading time per day	Less than 7 hours trading time per day
Costs	Can be low spread and no commission on many pairs	from $3 (for electronic) to $10-30 (all others)	from $5 (for electronic) to $15-$50 (all others)
Long/Short Flexibility	Can profit in both bull and bear markets	Most people buy stocks instead of short-sell	Tend to have extended bearish periods
Short-Sell Restrictions	Can short-sell anytime	Restrictions on some traders & stocks	Trading restricted by limit up/down rule
Leverage	In US, 50:1; elsewhere from 50:1 to as high as 1000:1	up to 2:1 leverage	up to 30:1 leverage
Min $ Requirements	Small min open & margin, generally: $50 for micro and $500 for mini accounts	Need > $500 for cash accounts; > $2000 for margin accounts	Open >$4000
Flexibility of Position Sizing	Flexible position sizing:   0.01 (10 cents/pip) to 0.1 ($1/pip) to 1 ($10/pip)	inflexible position sizing: 100+ shares, multiplied by the stock value	inflexible position sizing: 1 contract = fixed & potentially over-leveraged trading

FX Advantages In Sum

Forex allows you to execute fast and accurately (within a tremendously liquid environment), trade 24 hours in long and short directions with low spreads and/or commissions, with the potential of using very safe and flexible starting amounts, lot sizes and leverage. Stocks and futures, in contrast, have a far more limited trading window in terms of trading hours and direction, with far more possibilities of execution delay, slippage and price manipulation, trades can be costly in terms of commissions, and more risky in terms of their fixed starting amounts, lot sizes and leverage.