Stock exchanges are notoriously complicated, even for experienced traders who have learned the ins and outs of the system.

With so many traders, so much money, and so many different stocks all moving at once, keeping track of everything can be exhausting, and sometimes overwhelming.

That isn’t to say a stock exchange can’t have its strong or appealing points.

There’s nearly limitless potential for gains in these markets, and learning how to read and invest in stocks can lead to a very rewarding career, or at the very least a successful investment portfolio.

However, there are also plenty of people who love the idea of investment—whether on a day trading or long-term scale—who prefer a simpler and more manageable environment than that presented by most major exchanges.

It’s these people for whom forex trading can often be the most appealing, because in many ways leveraging international currencies against one another is a less complicated process with equally high potential for financial success.

There are four factors, actually, that we can almost definitively point to as reasons to consider forex trading a simpler exercise than that of managing stock portfolios.

1) The Market Is Huge

It’s easy to think of an ordinary stock market like the New York Stock Exchange as being nearly limitless in size, and as mentioned before part of what makes such exchanges so complex is that there’s just so much going on.

But in terms of sheer volume of wealth handled, the international forex market dwarfs the New York Stock Exchange (and every other exchange on the planet)—and this, in some ways, can benefit traders.

Generally speaking, the international forex market involves transactions exceeding $2 trillion, per day, and this sheer number can make forex transactions a little easier to manage and predict than many alternatives.

Because so much money is being moved, individual transactions (or even bundles of them) simply cannot move currency values particularly drastically over short periods of time.

This means that when you buy into a pairing, you can be more certain that you’re buying it at the value you like, as opposed to one it suddenly jumps or falls to just before your transaction goes through. Essentially, your analysis of supply and demand is more accurate due to the size of the market.

2) The Hours Are Favorable

One of the trickiest parts about navigating an ordinary stock exchange, particularly for day traders, is having to begin and end with predetermined office hours.

For example, the New York Stock Exchange (hereafter referred to as the NYSE) opens trading at 9:30 a.m. EST and closes at 4 p.m. EST.

While there are ways to engage in after hours trading and to study stock futures during closed hours, it’s also true that news and developments during off hours can result in sudden shifts upon the next day’s opening, which puts most day traders at a disadvantage.

This is basically not an issue in forex trading, because international currency pairs are traded against one another all over the world, 24 hours a day (with the most activity generally taking place in regions where stock exchanges are open at any given time).

Not only does this allow for forex day traders to keep an eye on currency values and conduct transactions whenever they please, but it also provides windows throughout the day and night during which conditions can be advantageous.

Volatility can be high during open-market overlap (say, for example, the four hours between 8 a.m. EST and noon, during which London and New York exchanges are both open). The overlaps are one of the best times for trading forex.

This means that should you choose to take advantage of increased activity and quicker shifts in currency pairings, there are opportunities to do so.

This kind of situation, during which an entire market is guaranteed to be more active, is more difficult to predict in stock trading.

3) Influence Is More Visible

Stock exchanges can be influenced by innumerable factors, and all of them have to be taken into account by traders.

To begin with, each individual stock is an extension of a company that performs independently, and may shift in value at any time due to earnings reports, new products, etc.

Beyond that, companies are tied to greater industries that can experience similar shifts.

And on an even broader scale, external factors such as geopolitics and market manipulation by massive hedge funds can dictate direction almost without regard for company performance.

This isn’t to suggest it’s impossible to navigate the market or make a sound prediction with relation to a particular investment, but to do so with accuracy requires a great deal of attention divided in a number of directions.

The factors that influence forex markets are more predictable, more visible, and more difficult to manipulate.

For the most part, movement in these markets boils down to the supply and demand and national interest rates that dictate exchange rates between currencies.

This doesn’t mean that predicting changes in currency pair values is an automatic process, or even an easy one, but in a general sense the market is more transparent.

One can trade in forex with a narrower focus than that which is required in stock exchanges.

4) The Market Is More Predictable

This is less of a point all on its own, and more a result of the aforementioned advantages to forex trading.

Many will argue that the forex market is predictable because it follows established trends. Whether or not you agree with this assertion, the factors described in this article amount to a more predictable investing environment.

Forex movement occurs on a 24-hour-a-day basis, in a relatively transparent fashion, and with such great volume that sudden shifts are seldom so dramatic as to cause problems.

This means that a patient and knowledgeable trader should be able to make sound projections more often than not.

None of these conditions necessarily makes it easy to profit from forex trading.

Every type of investment requires a favorable combination of discipline, intelligence, awareness, and even luck, and these are elements that can’t be provided purely by an environment.

But the actual design of the forex market and the methods by which one can invest in it are decidedly simpler than what one can find in the NYSE or other exchanges around the world.

That can all amount to a genuine advantage for a strong trader.