Ignorant questions

I know that Forex is a zero sum game. Even a negative sum game (counting spreads or/and comissions). So someone’s got to lose for me to win and viceversa. So far, so good.

However, I’ve been reading here and there about how brokers don’t exactly like people that actually win. I’ve read all kind of stories, from people being asked to change brokerage firm, to people actually getting their pips ripped off by their broker. Supposedly because all these people were doing good and making lots of pips (getting the broker all angry I guess).

So first question: How true is all that?
Second: If true, does it mean that as retail traders we are actually playing the game against the broker? I would’ve thought that we were playing against the market.
Third: So, if we win it is the broker that takes the losses? If we lose the broker keeps our money?

Thanks in advance for any answer. Needless to say, in the business of climbing pip mountains I’m still learning to tie knots to my PipClimbing rope and trying not to strangle myself in the process.

This question has been answered a number of times throughout
these forums.

Suffice to say you need to get an understanding of broker, market
maker, market, ecn, etc. to appreciate the full range of your question.

Just remember that there are scam brokers, as well as scam traders,
each stirring the “forex” soup to facilitate their own sorded plans.

The market is the market, it only beats to it’s own drum.

A market maker can set the spread & realise a false market in
a sense, manipulating this to their own ends, wholesale stop hunting,
wide spreads at news, etc. They have some form of direct link to
the bank feeds etc.

So let me put you in their shoes, if you knew a trader was winning
on a regular basis, also remember that the market maker is a forex
professsional, how do you think they would play this?

It all boils down to whether they are legitimate or not.

There not ignorant question pipmountain, there just regurgitated. As Daydreamer said, you can find all those answers to the questions you have by starting from page one of the forms, and just get studying.

as DD said, there are in fact scam brokers out there. Do your research throughout the many forums here, including the broker forums where many would-be traders actually raise stinks about losing money they once had.

Either way, if you get scammed, it’s all the traders fault. One, for not doing the proper research, two, because often times their not educated enough to trade succesfully.

theres alot of blame to go around for this that or the other…traders need to start pointing the finger at themselves more often.

I may someday buy into this evil broker theory if someone could explain to me why they would intentionally try to hurt their customers.

I think that most of these rumors circulate because brokers are faceless mysterious organizations who can fall under the term “THEY.”

All through life I have heard people blame things on “They or Them”

Could someone please post a reply who actually had a broker try to undermine their trading or stole pips from them? I hear alot of “I heards” and “he said she said” but I don’t think I have actually heard from anyone who actually was cheated by their broker (out of people who use one of the major brokers, I’m not talking about some ragtag basement broker that ran away with all of their clients money when FX was still the wild west.)

I’m with you. The folks blaming brokers for losses are almost invariably scapegoating for poor trading.

I use to think that [I]“my broker was out to get me”[/I] back when I just started out and was trading the news. Along the way I figure out the reasons behind the price movements before and after news time. So my broker wont get me again. :smiley:

Hey, that’s actually a good idea, We should start a new thread asking people to write if they’ve been cheated by their broker, and to tell details, which broker, exactly what happened, how they know they’ve been cheated etc. It could be a myth busting experience.:smiley:

It’s the same old problem whether you are talking commodities, stocks, or FX. These “stories” are circulated by non-winning, non-sucessful, and non-informed trader wannabes. That’s the fact behind all these horror stories. In the market like this, winners take from losers in very simple terms and this is the case. Now, back in the day, yes, I suppose brokers took the blunt much like a bookie would take the blunt of betters winning. However, most regulated firms out there are not in fact “brokers” but belong to market makers and they don’t grub commissions off of their clients. And they do their own trades just like all major brokerage firms and commodity firms do their own trades. The market and the client lists has gotten so huge that it is impossible to keep an eye on every single trader and trying to screw them. These conspiracy stories are told over and over by un-winning traders. One story I read again and again is how they got screwed by some firm during the news. News? Why are amateurs trading during the news anyhow? That’s my first question.l The fact hat this is not registering in their head tells me that they are blithering amateurs. They couldn’t get their fill, spread went crazy, blah blah blah. Uh, do they even understand the FX market? Or even basic Econ 101? Clearly NOT ! Market yes, market is made up of traders. When shorts win, longs pay them and vice versa. This is the basic concept whether doing commodities, options, stocks, or FX.