Just to clarify, FXCM entities worldwide offer traders the choice of opening a trading account with as little as $50 and trading micro lots where you can risk as little as 10 cents per pip. Since you live in the US, this option is available to you through our FXCM US entity.
Traders in Canada are in a unique situation, because FXCM does not have a locally-regulated entity there. Instead, a company called Friedberg Direct, which is regulated there, gives Canadian traders access to our technology. As a separate company, Friedberg decides its own account minimums, and at this time, their account minimum is $5000.
If you reside in the US, a fair and honest unregulated broker is far, far better than any of the scam brokers we are left with. In the US, your funds are not protected and you are dealing with ridiculous restrictions no trader anywhere else in the world deals with. They have all been fined numerous times and are allowed to continue. I trade offshore with an ECN and the only reason they remain unregulated is for my benefitā¦as a US citizen being able to trade restriction free. In addition, I am only required to use 10% of the margin required by a US broker to execute the same exact trade. So I keep 80% of my capital in an FDIC insured bank account and only keep 20% with broker. I still risk the same % of overall capital per trade but my money is far safer in my bank than sitting unprotected with a US broker. If you are not in the US, absolutely use a regulated broker, you have far more options than us here in the nanny state. The US regulations are there for one reasonā¦to eliminate spot forex completely so everyone will go back to futures. They are not here for the traders benefitā¦do not kid yourself.