Sure - you were comparing the trading behaviors or "market behavior" of 3 individual futures contracts to the entire FOREX. That's akin to saying something like, "Futures trade in a trending, less ping-pong fashion than IBM or MSFT" - you are contrasting individual instruments with an entire market - the largest market there is. You can't begin to characterize the trading dynamics of FOREX as a whole - where trillions of dollars are traded across every time zone, in every major and minor currency, (in every permutation - pairs, crosses, etc...) by central banks, I-banks, hedge funds, speculators, etc.... each day. I see Vision Trader has already described some of this.
Yes, I took a bunch of hits on the USD/JPY already because of BoJ manipulation...no matter how good a short it looked technically, so I stopped trading that pair for awhile. I don't want to end up like these guys...no rats in my stomach and no burrowing termite algorithms: http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,818086,00.html
What time frame do you go down too? Ive talked to a number of people day trading but so far their profits are allot lower than those doing longer term position trades. Although that might just be them. So far though Ive made more pips on average per month making a few trades a month than those making trades every day, it seems while they may make more pips than me in total they have alot more losses also as the risk increases. (Your mileage may vary)
My time frame is 1 to 5 minutes. I am a scalper, so, many scratch or wash trades, but more winning per day than loss. I hate draw down in the longer time frame. What are you going to do, when there are no pronounced trend?
I was trading equities, 2 years ago I had the chance to open a FOREX account for one of my clients. I traded succesfully, FA .... I'm not really a TA fan ... PS. My broker vanished with all my money and my clients' money. I intend to open the accounts again but with an US broker (I am from Romania). What are the chances of beeing stolen again, I mean how strict is the US legislation with the FOREX brokers???
If there is no trend I wait to observe highs/lows on the 4hrs charts and enter near support/resistances, so although the price isnt trending one particular direction more often that not there is still a range that it fluxs between. If none of the above, I dont trade that currency pair.
I saw your post in another thread about this...someone mentioned Gain Capital. They have trading accounts (in addition to the managed accounts someone mentioned) with segregated funds (kept in an account in your name at Citibank), giving them FDIC protection. See: http://www.gaincapital.com/index.asp?page=DWGOthers#protection
I think you have to be a US resident to get FDIC protection. Read somewhere in the Oanda's message forum.