Leveraged interest payments

It does not seem right to me that interest is paid to traders who are trading on margin. It is like opening up a certificate of deposit with no money down.

I thought I would open a discussion on this, asking about why this is allowed and if it's possible someone could make lots of money just by collecting interest on 500:1+ forex spot accounts.

if you are referring to the rollover rates...then it goes both ways.
depending on the position that can become a cost.

at the end of the day there is no free lunch...if you decide to open positions even diversified position on multiple carry trade currencies , if leverage is not managed responsibly the fluctuation in exchange can take you out.

if you are managing risk properly and hoping to make money on the roll over rates while attempting to keep a very well diversified portfolio.... correlation coefficients are not = 1 so a change in the equilibrium of your overall holdings become a risk of currency fluctuation.

Makes sense, thank you.

I found Oanda's interest rate calculator. There is an option that says "trade" or "balance" what does this mean?

http://fxtrade.oanda.com/analysis/interest-calculator

Is trade the first close, and balance the close swaps after that?