Binary Options vs Forex – Part Two

Closing a position

Forex: You choose when to close the position. You can close your position anytime the market is open and the broker has to accept and execute the order.

Binary Options: Before you make your trade you have to select when you want the option to expire (example: 1 hour or 1 week from now) – at the “expiry time” your trade will close automatically. The broker offers you different types of options with predetermined expiry times. Some brokers allow you to close your trade early, but you will exit your option at a percentage of the expected return. The “early closure” option is not offered by all brokers, and might not be available during the whole time the trade is active. Another important point to mention is that some brokers allow traders to delay the expiry time, to the next expiry time. This is called “Rollover” and the traders will need to increase their investment by a certain percentage, sometimes 30% in order to be able to do this.
Orders Types

Forex: There are a variety of order types in Forex. The most important ones are the market (Buy/Sell) orders. Also there are more advanced orders such as: Limit, Stop, OCO (One Cancels the Other), Trailing Stop, Hedge orders, and others.

Binary Options: There are about five Binary Options types which you can trade. They include: High/Low (also referred to as: Call/Put or Up/Down), 60 Seconds Options, Touch/No Touch Options, Boundary Options, and Option Builder.
Trade size

Forex: Some brokers allow you to trade micro lots, which is 1,000 units of the base currency in a Forex trade. The maximum trading amount is determined by each broker, and can be up as high as 100 standard lots or $10,000,000.

Binary Options: Each Binary Options broker determines what is the minimum and maximum trading size for its clients. Sometimes the minimum trading amount can be as low as $5 per trade, and the maximum can be up to $1,000 or $5,000 or more.
Trading costs

Forex: When trading Forex you have to consider what are the spreads and rollover/swap, and if there are any commissions.

Binary Options: There are no spreads, rollover/swap or commissions when trading Binary Options.