The five main differences between trading shares and Forex are:
Trading volume – the Forex market has a larger trading volume than the stock market.
Instrument diversity – there are thousands of stocks to choose from, as opposed to several dozen currency pairs. Price effect – stocks’ prices are mainly affected by 'internal factors’, such as financial reports and other corporate events (dividends, stock splits, etc.), whereas Forex pairs are mostly influenced by 'external factors', such as positive or negative political and economic developments between countries/regions.
Market volatility – stock prices can fluctuate wildly from one day to the next, and their fluctuations are generally sharper than the ones found in Forex markets.
Leverage ratios – the available leverage for Forex CFDs on the Plus500 platform is 1:30, while the leverage for shares CFDs is 1:5.
Please note that when trading Forex or shares CFDs you do not actually own the underlying instrument, but are rather trading on their anticipated price change.