If you are concerned about which broker to choose and who to trust (which I think one should be, given the unregulated nature of the industry and the recent Refco scandal) here are some things you can do to research the background of your prospective forex broker:
Make sure that your broker is a registered futures commission merchant. Get the brokers NFA ID and look them up at BASIC Search
Visit the CFTC website at Selected Financial Data for Futures Commission Merchants to verify that the registered FCM has substantial assets. The NFA required minimum is 250,000. This is a modest requirement, I think assets of at least 10 million is what you should be looking for.
Get a demo account and check validity of the brokers price feed by cross checking the trading platform feeds against eSignal.
Bear in mind that ‘FDIC insured’ and ‘segregated accounts’ does not necessarily guarantee the safety of your account.
Actually you are incorrect about FXCM. They posted on another forum a few months ago about the same mistake being made. If you look up FXCM LLC you will only see the info for their futures trading company that they set up, in case they are ever looking to offer it. You have to look up Forex Capital Markets LLC and you will see their net excess is well over Gain Capitals not to mention they have $120 million in capital…here is the form - they have off $55 million in excess
Wahoo! This is really nice, we can have all the information we need about a broker in an instant of time. Nice share man. I would definitely do this with the broker am with Profiforex, though they have been trying with their services. Thanks man.