Nobody who's successful, you can be pretty sure (unless - arguably, conceivably but not-very-likely) they're doing so solely as an occasional, temporary, complicated form of hedging. In principle, any kind of trading you can do that way, you can do in other ways with lower dealing-costs and with the deck less stacked against you. More and more countries are gradually making "binary options" illegal, or preparing to, and that's not happening without reasons, at least some of which are valid: industries that don't and can't regulate themselves effectively tend gradually but inexorably to get more aggressive external regulation imposed on them at a societal/governmental level. It was ever thus. Forget Nadex, Cole: it really isn't part of the plan or answer you seek.
Nadex is a CFTC regulated exchange in the U.S. It is externally regulated quite aggressively, same as CME or CBOE. While I agree with you when it comes to unregulated binary bucket shops, Nadex isn't one of those.
spreads are not binary options or created from binary options they are separate contracts and it's $1 per tick so is great for small accounts and I have day traded them in demo and was successful it's the same as trading futures for all intents and purposes the main issue I see with it is that the commodity contracts are "daily" so they settle after the pit hours for said commodity and then restart at 5pm or 6pm but everything else has both weekly and daily contracts not everyone has $30,000 to put into a futures trading account
I had some difficulty deciding whether or not to post again, here ... ... I don't want to sound argumentative, but I've decided to, because there are things I want to add, in view of a couple of the responses to what I said above. I know this (though it's owned by a bucketshop, but I admit that's probably irrelevant, here) ... and I wasn't suggesting that it is "one of those", Sig. I don't think this reality detracts at all, though, from my three suggestions above: (a) that any kind of trading you can do that way, you can do in other ways with lower dealing-costs and with the deck less stacked against you; (b) that you can, in my opinion, be pretty sure that nobody who's successful, over the long term, is doing this other than possibly as an occasional, temporary, complicated form of hedging; (c) that Nadex is not part of the plan or answer Cole seeks (and I was basing that observation partly on other threads in which he's posted, in addition to what he's asked here). Of course what you're saying is perfectly true - but I don't think it detracts from the reality of these three points. I know this (actually I know it better and more directly than most people do, because I wasn't myself able to open a futures account for many, many years!) but again, it doesn't detract from or rebut anything I said above, Cole. It's not about whether you have $30k to open a futures account. Nobody mentioned futures accounts. You can, for example, open a safe, reliable, perfectly decent spot forex trading account with Oanda for as little as you want, with infinite granularity of position-sizing, and not subject yourself to the hideous "odds against"/"badly stacked deck" circumstances you'd encounter with Nadex. That's what I had to do, because I couldn't possibly have afforded to trade futures (and hardly knew anything about them anyway), and it worked out very well for me. Of course what you're saying is also perfectly true - but it just isn't relevant to what I pointed out above. Trading at Nadex is not the only alternative to having $30k to open a futures account. Nor is it a well-judged or even a well-informed alternative, however potentially interested you might be in daytrading the Nadex spreads. That would be a way of making long-term success significantly less likely. Sorry if this isn't what you wanted to hear, but "that's the way it is". So I hope you weren't inviting only opinions with which you already agree.
I'm not sure how the odds are stacked against you at Nadex given you can take either side of any trade and put an order in inside the spread if you want to make money off the spread? I agree that Oanda is a great place to trade spot and they seem to be far more open, transparent, and above board than any other bucket shop. But at the end of the day they offer spot and since they aren't a CFTC regulated exchange and are above board you can't trade any kind of options with them, so you can't do spreads or any derivatives. So since you can't trade spot at Nadex and can't trade derivatives (or anything but forex) at Oanda it's an apples to oranges comparisons. If you are arguing that spot is better for the OP than derivatives that's a very different argument than that Nadex is rigged and Oanda isn't. Finally Oanda isn't subject to the same level of regulatory scrutiny as Nadex (and Cantor). And they are your counterparty for small traders, with the inherent conflict of interest that represents. IG does own one of the MM on Nadex, so you do see some of that but there are at least two other completely unaffiliated MM plus any customer can take either side of any order, so arguably the conflict isn't nearly as strong with Nadex/IG plus you have all the CFTC regulatory remedies with them. I've been trading for years and have PM accounts at other brokers but find Nadex offers a unique product that I've found useful and would be even more useful if there was more customer volume. As a result, while I don't have any monetary interest in Nadex or IG I would love to see them succeed and would encourage those who lump them with an unregulated bucket shop to take the time to check them out more closely. You may be surprised by what you find.
how is it stacked against me? i will continue to trade fx but i want to trade other markets too. futures are what have always interested me but i was forced into fx because of my capital or lack thereof.