One of the main things which attract people to the Forex market is the high leverage which brokers offer Forex traders. Indeed, Forex leverage can offer substantial profits, yet using too big a leverage can also act against you and cause bigger losses to accumulate in a hurry.

How does Forex leverage work?

For instance, if you place a $500 deposit and are offered a 100:1 leverage, you can open trades of $50,000. This means that if the currency pair which you’ve chosen rises by 1%, you earn $500, or a 100% return on your investment. This is a huge return and can happen within a day or 2. Huge, right?

However, Forex leverage also has it’s own special risks as well. Take the same example of a 100:1 leverage on a $500 deposit and let’s say that your currency pair shifted 0.5% in the wrong direction. This means that you lost $250. That’s right, half of the money you put in, a loss of 50% in one trade.

So, you see, selecting how big a Forex leverage you choose is an important decision which can literally make or break your trading experience. Just imagine a new trader trying a 100:1 leverage and end up losing his or her entire deposit on a 1% shift in the wrong direction. It’s one of the reasons people think the Forex market is so risky. They lose their deposit in their first trade and are so turned off that they never try again.

If you’re new, go for much smaller leverage levels. I recommend not going over 10:1 levels. If your position rises by 1% you gain a 10% return, which is still amazing. But if you lose, than only 10% of the deposit is gone and you have a lot more to work with and earn it back in future trades.

One of the key rules of Forex risk management is to choose a leverage lever which you can handle. If your deposit constitutes a large part of your finances, than choose a lower leverage 5:1 for example. Don’t be tempted by tales of huge forex gains at 500:1 leverage. Most of the people only tell about their winning, not about their losses.

Forex trading is a long term enterprise. Don’t allow yourself to be thrown out of the game by making one bad trade at a huge leverage.

By: John J. Drummond