Been trading both demo and live for 1 year with several brokers, now with Oanda. Just started studying order flow and how it controls price action. My question is this...from my understanding, small retail traders such as myself ($5,000 and under accounts) make up the majority of small brokers customers, so how can we trade with the big (smart) money. I assume the big players are not using Oanda or others, just guys like me. So if that is the case, am I just playing in an artificial market that somewhat mirrors the big market that a bunch of small players are trading against each other. If so, do I need to study market data and order flow differently than someone who is trading big money on open market. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.
You either have direct market access (DMA) which all pros have, or you don't. If you don't, your broker puts in a direct order for you. You are infact trading the same market as everyone else, just most likely through a middleman.