Many people don't believe in forex. They think it is scam. But I do believe in forex as it is a money making machine and it is a real business throughout the world. Do you believe in forex?
I have not actively traded forex yet but from my research I see the trick is to avoid the bucket shops. Opinions diverge on which exactly are the bucket shops.
Use currency futures and you don't need to worry about the broker trading against you. However, you do need to trade when the market is moving or have automatic limit or stop orders set to go off if you are sleeping during that time.
It seems to have matured in the past few years. Pick a big stable broker and you are fine. The biggest problem ws the complete newbies wading in, robot trading, on 100:1+ leverage! Then screaming like hell when they lost their "3k" life savings.
That's the issue right there: There's such a low barrier to entry with FX (minimal start-up capital needed given the leverage), combined with spot being an OTC market that isn't as easily regulated, and topping it off with many brokers trying to pitch forex trading as "easy" to scoop up more clients.... and we get piles of failed traders wanting to blame the broker and the industry for their losing trades. Do I personally believe in forex? Absolutely! I've paid for vacations and tuition bills with it in the past and am well beyond net profitable. If anything, I have struggled more in equities and options than I ever have with forex. But that's just me being candid.
Most brokers are bucket shops, stick with Interactive,Oanda,MBtrading,Lmax,etc.. Besides the above brokers, I believe in God..
forex has changed dramatically over the past few years due to ECN brokers like IB and MBT. I prefer forex much more so than futures because I am able to better control my risk. I could drop my risk down to $5 whenever I hit a losing streak if I wanted to. You can't do that with futures. The inability to control one's risk is one of the major factors why most futures traders lose - that along with not having an edge.