I am playing with an FXCM demo account. Whenever I open buy or sell order I am immediately in the negative. What is preventing me from buying or selling at the market price?
Hi jsk
All trades are automatically opened at a loss. This reflects the costs of the trade which is in the spread and/or your brokers commission fees.
There are in fact two ‘market prices’. The price for buying and the price for selling. The difference between the two is what is known as the spread.
The spread and commission (if any) will vary between brokers. So choose carefully before considering any real money trading. Naturally, a bigger account will generally reduce trading costs.
Go through the excellent school here and feel free to ask more questions. I hope this reply is useful 
Michael is bang on. You really need to study at the school before you consider trading with real money, there are so many things you need to know about first
Welcome to the forum, Jskypilot
I see Michael and Eddie have already provided you with some great info!
Just to add to what Michael said about the spread between the buy and sell price in the market, while you can see the current spread available in the market on the Dealing Rates window of your Trading Station, you can see FXCM’s historical spreads here: Historical Spreads
Thanks for the responses guys
If you have more questions about your FXCM demo account, you’re welcome to ask me in the Broker Aid Station.