Comment below moved from original location due to ad hominem comments.
} 'The increase in [I]speculative[/I] online retail FX ‘trading’ systems was as a result of further financial market deregulation, to improve access for a set of market participants who wouldn’t ordinarily ‘trade’ forex. What is often proclaimed by many ‘experts’ here is that it is some sort of a foolproof investment vehicle! It may be an increasingly important and growing sector of the entire global FX market, but just because retail FX exists to serve the needs of such ‘traders’, it doesn’t necessarily imply that: [I]‘retail FX is not trading’[/I] was a stupid statement. Retail FX speculation on the margins, as a financial product and given its reported growth since the late ‘90s, is simply nowhere near the volumes / trading by major (central) banks, international trade transactions or transfers in sovereign funds. At best, retail FX only represents a very small percentage of the total market (well below 10%, based upon 2010 market values). Retail FX therefore, as a concept, sounds a bit more like souped-up-fast-and-furious-waiting-in-line-at-the-bureau-de-change; of course, in that context, there is no need for a financial trading license, if exchanging one currency for another on an individual retail current account - the principle is the same if you’re buying currency to use abroad. The point about licenses was being made about interbank trading. The comment / post was to help another forum reader to understand that retail FX ‘trading’ on margins with leverage, is not always what it’s cracked up to be. [U]Disclaimers[/U] describing the risks on retail FX broker sites, whether they’re well regulated by the financial authorities or not, [U]are there to read for a reason[/U]. There are a lot of posts on here (where the emphasis is supposed to be primarily on education and learning) saying silly things about FOREX trading analysis and systems, and unfortunately Mr. Kent, despite the market for retail FX products, the comment about retail FX trading [I]not being the same[/I] as institutional (interbank, commercial) FX trading, wasn’t one of them.’
‘Some further reading to consider below.’ {
Foreign Currency Trading - CFTC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market
Foreign exchange fraud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Is Currency Trading Worth the Risk? - WSJ.com
Protect yourself from unauthorised firms - Financial Conduct Authority