Trading comodities alongside currencies through mt4

i can’t help but notice there are all these other things to trade alongside currencies on mt4, such as
xti
xau
indices
cocoa
sugar etc.

now, most people trade a basket of currencies, no more than 8 pairs or so. i’m thinking is it worthwhile trading these as well, since they are probably not much correlated to certain currency pairs, thus providing more trading opportunities?

and , i’m guessing at least some of them are cfds for futures contracts on futures exchanges. but what is xau? that’s “spot price” gold and not “futures price”, so that can’t be an underlying futures contract then, can it. what is it? am i buying gold which is stored somewhere in a vault that has my name on it?
need clarification on that.

yes most people here trade currencies and then one day start commodities and other things and pif paf puf start earning money.

no you dont buy gold. in fact trading with a cfd broker, which you are, means the same like trading currencies. you bet on the change of price but do not participate in the market at all. most brokers here used for forex trading are offering cfd’s on commodities and indexes. these trades are solely and purely dealing desk trades so in 100% of cases you trade/bet against your broker.

if you want to participate on the market you must go with futures contracts or warrants and options.

there are many advantages trading commodoties. the spreads are tiny and the moves are bigger than in currencies. the market is not manipulated 24/5 like currencies and is based solely on supply and demand (besides gold, that is in itself a currency mixed with industrial demand). the margins i can not compare since i dont trade currencies but from what ive seen the required margin proportional to the potential gain/loss (leverage) is pretty similar to forex only difference is that you can skip and forget about the annoying pip lot mini lot and “whatever” calculation since you buy an amount of contracts and not like "100.000"€ etc and the difference aswell is that moves are bigger and stronger in range so you earn the same amount of money like in a currency trade but in shorter time.

the trends aswell are far more developed and easier to spot and easier to follow than in forex.

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this is confusing. so if i’m buffet and buy xauusd on mt4, i won’t move the price of gold at all, since i’m not actually buying gold (it’s a fake transaction)? this is unclear to me. and the chart on mt4 just ‘copies’ the real one online somewhere for gold-usd? my understanding with forex currency pairs, is that my money is used to buy another currency and stays in that form until i close the trade. that i really am buying a currency.

too much to explain, google dealing desk and google if your trades with a ecn broker ever make it to any market.

in currencies aswell, your trade never even touches the market, even if the broker guarantees a “no dealing desk” policy, your trade usually makes it only to a “wholeseller” like a insurance or bank but never truly to the interbank market or to move the price of the currency you are buying or selling.

I am a US citizen. I’ve been trading currencies with an MT4 broker. Id like to also trade oil, as I’ve backtested my EU method on oil, and it does well. But as a US citizen, Ive not found any broker that allows me to trade both oil and 4x via an MT4 latform. Ive done quite an extensive search. The only one i can find is FXCM, but I believe they are a market maker, and I dont trust any broker who makes money off my losing trades.