So I have no experience trading. My friend tells me that there are “market makers” who manipulate the market to throw off stop loss orders and juke out indicators, essentially crippling any form of prediction and is telling me forex is all hype that I want to trade futures, that it’s easier and more lucrative. What are your thoughts on this? I understand nothing, enlighten me 
All markets are manipulated to one extent or another by the largest players in that market and forex is no exception.
Yes, stop runs occur as a means of clearing orders and providing liquidity (and profit) by those players. It happens in other markets as well.
It’s my opinion that employing technical analysis techniques for each market can be very similar while fundamental analysis is completely different for each market.
Fundamental factors driving the price of coffee at a mercantile exchange, for instance, have little to do with fundamentals driving the price of a small tech company’s shares on the NASDAQ which has little to do with the price of the GBP. When viewed as whole on a more macro level, commodity prices can have a relation to currency pairs which can have an inverse correlation to stock indices.
Each market has its own unique flavor and idiosyncracies to get used to. In the stock markets there are tens of thousands of companies that can be analyzed and traded. In forex, there only so many major pairs and major crosses to keep track of. Futures, IMO, requires much more fundamental analysis than other markets because, by definition, you need to have an idea of what is likely to happen in a more distant future – the longer the timeframe the more fundamental analysis applies (though short term trading is certainly done).
Look into all of them (extensively) since you “understand nothing” and you will gravitate to one or another. You may find you have an affinity for pork bellies or you may prefer the industry/sector/company analysis found in stocks or it may be that nothing makes your heart go pitter-patter like trading the GBP/JPY in forex.
I feel more interested in the fundamental analysis in forex, paying attention to worldwide economy as opposed to commodities or business health. I suppose I’ll learn forex first and venture into the other markets later if I peak an interest.
I’d like to know if market manipulation is predictable and if so, are there any resources on learning to predict manipulation? I guess I want to get a feel of how much prediction is actually possible in this market before I dive in.
I understand that you will always have plenty of losses along with your gains, and I feel I could easily stick to a system despite whatever emotional distress, but I want to make sure it’s not just the rich that are able to make good money out of trading and that sites like this and others aren’t just paid salesmen luring people in for market liquidity and food for the real players.
Thanks for your input
I would say that [I]when[/I] market manipulation occurs isn’t exactly predictable but when it occurs it is both obvious and very telling. Two traders here go into their methods of how to “exploit the exploiters” in great detail:
The ICT videos (found in first link) have very cheesy intros and are boring as hell and it is like having teeth pulled to sit through them. The info contained in them, however, is actually quite good and is an excellent look at a comprehensive methodology. ICT has a zillion threads on this forum and they are all quite popular – for a reason.
The second link will give you a look at a much more narrow trading methodology called VSA (it may be difficult for most newbies to grasp because of its unique terminology but is an excellent method of trading). It has also spawned additional threads and is probably the best look at identifying the moves of “smart money.”
Before diving into the threads I linked to you should probably put yourself through the BabyPips school. It is a good intro and will give you a frame of reference for everything else on this site – otherwise you will just kind of stay lost – again, no frame of reference to know what they are talking about.
If you are interested in fundamentals then keep in mind that their applicability to trading is much more important for long term positions and not day or swing trading (which the above links concentrate on). Short term market manipulation doesn’t have much affect on long term trades. Interest rates are the most important factor determining the long term strength/weakness of a currency and there isn’t much of a way to manipulate one’s way out of that no matter how large the players are.
If this site is full of paid salesmen then they are not very good at it!
Excellent post, I would just like to say with having in-depth experience of both methods, ICT methods pinpoint where smart money enters, while VSA just gives you a general view.
nice reply’s with nice comments. really its a good info…