I would never trade forex as it is a "huge spead 3-10 pip" not good thought...stick to tight spread futures...ES, EC
I'll go ahead and cast a vote for spot. I'm constantly watching both spot and futures (I trade currency futures options), and I prefer trading spot for making pure currency trades. Claims of superior liquidity in futures is completely dependent on the spot fx platform used. I trade with a popular ECN, and I routinely see spreads of 0.5 - 1.0 pips on the EURUSD with 10-20 mil on each side. As for centralized versus decentralized exchanges. Shrug. There will always be risk that your broker shuts down and bankruptcy court gets to your deposits before you can. If you trade with a reputable name in the forex world, I personally don't think you have anything to worry about.
hahahhaha, be honest, you go online and put up these comments in these forums to learn something new? from the looks of it, you know a whole lot, so are you doing this because you are good and kind hearted? or is IB paying you to do this? because I would not spend my precious time on forums if I wasn't getting paid for it or seeking to learn more.
Do I go on these forums to learn more about forex brokers? No, not really. I know what I need to know already and am more than willing to share information I've learned after doing my homework on picking a broker. Does this make me a bad person? The accusation that I work for IB is laughable. People ask questions, so I answer them to the best of my ability. Does my answer subsequently imply that I think fairly highly of IB? Sure it does. They've done me well, for the most part, and I see no reason to do otherwise. Obviously it's not perfect, but I am quite honestly quick to dismiss anyone who says "XYZ BROKER SUCKS THEY COST ME 923857293857 DOLLARS~!!!!!" If you check out reviews for brokers in any industry, you'll always get the stray "OMG THIS BROKER SUCKS!!!" comment because of some unsubstantiated sob story where the person clearly doesn't understand market dynamics and/or how to place an OCO order. You have to learn how to filter through this garbage and actually read meaningful reviews of said businesses to gauge whether or not you should try them out for yourself. If you've had a bad experience with IB, then by all means share it. Let the rest of the trading community make their own judgment. Otherwise, if you're going to come on here and give us a seemingly bullshit "OMG THIS PLACE IS THE WORST EVER!!!!", you can do us all a favor by quietly crying yourself a river and keep this kind of scare-mongering to yourself.
You seem very protective of IB, and that is why I'm saying this. And now you are becoming very offensive, and that's to show that my assumbtion might have some truth to it. My system froze on my the day of 9/18/2007 while trading with IB while I was profiting big time. After my system froze, I realized that I have lost a big chunk of my profits.
So why is IB at fault for your system freezing? I'm not defending them, I'm actually moving away from them for FX purposes, but it has nothing to do with their reliability.
I trade spot thru MB Trading. I use euro futures data w/ volume as part of repertoir to trade spot. MB doesnt charge pip spread...about $5 per $100,000 lot flat fee. No problems with MB so far..Im very happy. They are an ECN like IB.. Stay away from from the brokers in Europe...very unregulated, and most trade against you.