There is no doubt that today’s retail traders bear very little similarity to the retail traders that existed en masse even as recently as the end of the last decade. Just under a decade ago, the MetaTrader 4 platform had already rocketed to ubiquity. At that time, however, its format was a closed system, not designed to connect retail traders to a live marketplace. Instead, it was integral to the dealing desk software, hence the counterparty was always the house. Back then, FX trading was in its infancy on the retail market as a global proposition, bringing to fruition thousands of new brokerages in unregulated ... (full story)