trading with a higher leverage in cfd means?

If a beginner were to ask you the implications of trading cfds with higher leverage, what would your response be?

J
@josiah_edem - 10 months ago

The Good News:

trading cfds with higher leverage means you require a smaller account balance to open a trade and you stand to make higher profits if the market moves in your favor.

The Bad News:

trading cfds with higher leverage also means losses are going to hurt more than profits because a small price swing against you can empty your trading account within seconds. It is better to trade with low leverage so you don't trade with fear and losses wont hurt as much.

Quoted - josiah_edem

The Good News:

trading cfds with higher leverage means you require a smaller account balance to open a trade and you stand to make higher profits if the market moves in your favor.

The Bad News:

trading cfds with higher leverage also means losses are going to hurt more than profits because a small price swing against you can empty your trading account within seconds. It is better to trade with low leverage so you don't trade with fear and losses wont hurt as much.

High leverage means you can open several trades with a small amount of money, but the problem is you will not have much spare cash left (free margin) to keep the trades open if they trades go into a loss.

So, imagine I have $3 & my leverage is 1:500, I may be able to open only one 0.01 lot size trade, but someone else who has the same $3 but whose leverage is 1:3000 will be able to open about four trades of the same 0.01 lot size.

But since my leverage is low, i will last longer in the market even if i am making a loss, i will have more time for my trade to recover into profit.

But for the other person using 1:3000 leverage, once the trade goes into loss, the broker will close his trade since he won't have any cash buffer left in his account to give his trade time to recover.

T
@tiny_ox - 6 months ago

People who trade with high leverage can open a big-sized trade with very small money, but they had better have a sufficient account balance because the bigger your trade, the wider your stop loss should be.

Stop loss is directly related to your account balance: small account balance = small stop loss; big account balance = bigger stop loss.

Now imagine you use high leverage to open a trade but you have a very small account balance, you will be forced to set a small stop loss, and boom! you get closed out of the market every time price reverses direction.

Access to high leverage can easily lead to over-trading, allowing you to open more trades but not leaving you with a sufficient account balance to be able to set a wide-enough stop loss. This is why many traders keep getting stopped out of their trades and recording losses.

V
@vickyjoseph - 5 months ago

It means you should have extra money sitting in your trading account because if you sustain just a little loss, your broker will immediately require you to deposit more funds, or your trade will be closed at the current loss.