Just out of curiousty, I want to see what the breakdown is of FX traders on this site. Do you trade mostly spot, futures or options. Feel free to add any comments on this thread.
If your account is between 10K and 1MM, and quite possibly beyond that, you should be trading futures -- unless you want to trade more exotic pairs.
You are eliminating the middle man who makes his money off you paying an artificial spread -- hence, you get a cleaner picture of the market, that is the most crucial difference. It's true that futures in currencies are themselves priced off an interbank quote, but adjustments are instantaneous -- it's as close to the real thing as any retail individual trader is going to get. Why unnecessarily trade off an artificial quote? What is the advantage for trusting your own broker's presentation of the market, when he is the one who profits more the worse your fills are? Isn't it possible for the same broker to present 2 different bids and asks to 2 separate traders, because they know one is long and the other short? Granted, these same games go on in the cash market with the much bigger players, but again, there is no need for you have to suffer through that with globex available. I've wondered why you still traded through retail spot, I seriously recommend you consider going to globex. That's my opinion, but I don't think I'd be the only who feels this way.
Name one advantage retail spot offers over the globex system (which is where, now after the merger with cbot, pretty much everything else trades), aside from the fact that you can open a $500 account and trade microlots.
free charts... more pairs...(some dealers pay high interest on cash balance)...some say that liquidity is better, during certain times, but I would not know...
Not sure i am classified as retail but whatever. I use mainly currenex, lava, hotspot and baxter. The liquidity is infinitely superior to globex -which I have via TT but hardly use.
To be fair free charts or any bells is no reason to choose another source of pricing. I trade where prices and liquidity is best and that isnt globex. If I need extras I pay for them.