Forex is NOT a CFD. The reason you can’t withdraw your investment is because you’re using leverage so don’t have near enough money to withdraw the currency you’re trading. Has nothing to do with CFD. You ARE trading actual currency though and not a contract. EURUSD is not a CFD at any broker.
It does NOT matter whether I am trading with leverage or not. Even if I trade a forex pair all in cash, I still wouldn't be able to withdraw it because I don't own it because it's a CFD contract with no physical delivery. That's how retail forex trading is. You are trading a CFD on a currency pair and are making/losing money over the difference in price over time. If you want to trade retail forex non-CFD, you need to trade currency futures, currency options, currency futures options, currency forwards, currency swaps and etc. If you trade spot forex retail, you are trading a CFD. Next time put in a non-leveraged all-cash forex trade with IC Markets or any retail forex broker and see if you can withdraw the money, i.e. if are long in EUR/USD, try to see if you can withdraw the EUR. Chances are you can't unless you specify to the broker that you are just doing exchanges in currency and not trading it. That's just how retail forex is. You are never trading the actual foreign currency itself. ASIC and CFTC all confirm it. It does take a while to realize this due to the retail forex industry obscuring this on purpose to make retail forex trading to look like we are participating in the grand inter-market forex so to make it more exciting when in fact we are not. We never did and never were. The real several trillion dollar foreign exchange inter-market had absolutely nothing do with retail forex. Somebody once tried to explain to me the same thing and I didn't believe him either until I read the mandatory ASIC disclosure statement that all retail forex brokers have to publish on their website and they stated clearly that the forex trading is in fact CFD, that's when I realized the truth. It's actually no big deal that retail forex trading is trading in CFD; you can still make money as long as you are dealing with a honest broker but I believe it's important that everybody is aware of what retail forex trading truly is.
There's no such thing as 'spot retail FX' - you either trade FX via CFD, spot, futures or whatever instrument you choose. FX at IB is spot, delivered as per t+2 (or 1 if cad). Oanda US? Rolling spot contracts, so no delivery. The majority of fx brokers are CFDs I grant you, but not all. But all this is splitting hairs. CFD or spot is immaterial - your counterparty is still the broker in retail, which brings a conflict of interest. So it comes down to how they route orders, what the reality of execution is, and how their price compares to interbank and how safe your money is. Doesn't matter who you trade with - you always need to keep your eyes open. To the OP, interbank prices - LSEG, EBS or Currenex. All three are averaged for the hourly fix- the defacto industry settlement price. If you compare LSEG to the Metaquotes feed - the default white label feed used by all buckets registered in Caymans,Cyprus et al - the difference is small except for high volatility times and for about an hour post the roll when they gauge the prices. Industry parlance calls it regulatory arbitrage. But the reality is CYSEC, CIMA et al - don't give a toss, so they do it, and it's plain and simple fraud. all part of the game.
Agreed. Like I said, you can still make money in CFD provided the broker you are dealing with is relatively honest but CFD is a derivative product where it itself doesn't have value and instead derives its value from its underlying, the forex itself whereas the spot forex is an actual financial asset and has value in itself that's determined by various factors. The difference from the trading point of view might be small but you are dealing with two entirely different financial products here, one is a derivative and another is an valued asset and thus you are facing many different things, like margin requirements, restrictions, risk and etc. The issue is transparency and disclosure, letting traders know what they are dealing with.
1) The major exchange for EUR/USD is the London Forex market, as it handles the highest volume. For reliable data, you can use sources like Reuters, Bloomberg, or data providers like Dukascopy for backtesting. It's crucial to ensure the data is from a reputable source with high liquidity. 2) For brokers supporting MT4 with low commissions, consider large brokers like IC Markets, Pepperstone, or XM. These brokers offer competitive spreads and low commissions while supporting MT4/MT5. 3) Forex operates 24/5, with no formal "intraday breaks." However, there are quieter periods, especially between 22:00 GMT and 23:00 GMT, when liquidity drops before the Asian session picks up. There’s no pre-market auction like in equities; trading starts Sunday evening at 22:00 GMT.
That's NOT an exchange. The real forex market is an inter-market which is a network of just companies and the dealers and major banks exchanging currencies back and forth. It's still OTC and it's not a centralized exchange where there is just this ONE price for each pair and all of the dealers, banks, brokers, companies, all the players in the forex market trade according to that one price like stocks on the New York Stock Exchange which is a centralized exchange. You call up 5 different dealers/banks in London or anywhere in the world and you will get 5 different prices for the same currency pair. But for us retail forex traders, we don't have access to that. The brokers that we deal with which are really just white labels of various trading platforms like MT4/MT5 might use the price as a reference guide but they will give a completely different quote when we trade with them.
thanks all of you guys. i have another question https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...-ic-market-and-a-query-about-myfxbook.382033/ can you guys have a look?
The trades in myfxbook are supposed to be genuine as they are supposed to be from verified trading accounts but that does not mean the trading results itself is always genuine as they can be manipulated to show an exceptionally good return that may not be doable in real life. So when the results are just too good to be true, you need to treat it with a grain of salt and many times scrutinize it a bit more to find out why and how the trading results can be so good.
The major exchanges for EUR/USD are typically Euronext (Paris) and the CME Group (Chicago). For reliable backtesting, use data from trusted sources like those offering historical market data. Forex markets operate 24/5, with lower liquidity during Sunday evening until the European session begins. MT4 is widely supported by brokers offering low commission structures.