Just received IB's RISK DISCLOSURE STATEMENT FOR FOREX TRADING AND IB MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNTS (link) This breakout caught my eye: The table below sets forth the percentage of non-discretionary retail forex customer accounts maintained by Interactive Brokers LLC that were profitable and unprofitable for the past four calendar quarters. TIME PERIOD | NUMBER OF ACCOUNTS | % OF PROFITABLE ACCOUNTS | % OF UNPROFITABLE ACCOUNTS Q1 2012 49286 41.4% 58.6% Q4 2011 45053 51.0% 49.0% Q3 2011 45058 51.2% 48.8% Q2 2011 41651 38.8% 61.2% I have occasionally traded FX via the ETF's and have not tried off-exchange Forex. The number of Forex accounts at IB is growing at +18% on an annual basis, but are these new FX sheep being lead to the slaughter? Reading the risk statement gives me no comfort that this is a market where you can develop an edge.
Non discretionary retail meaning that they are using EA's? Or meaning that they have someone from IB advising them? I don't understand that line.
That line was copied verbatim of of the top of page 3 of IB's statement. I do not know how they define "non-discretionary retail forex customer" versus "discretionary retail forex customer."
Profitability stats may be skewed by the methodology used by IB versus that of other forex-only FCM's. See this post for more discussion: http://forexmagnates.com/interactiv...ty-is-the-largest-and-most-profitable-broker/