Cost of carry, spot vs forward, Islamic Account

The Standard Story is, FX markets are the most liquid markets, EURUSD is the most popular cross, etc. Everybody is hunting for a lucky streak in his margined account.
Nobody is talking about costs (=fix Revenue for the Brokers). Roll charges for spot positions vary from 2% to 4,5% pa, leaving a standard margin Trader (leverage 1:200) with annual fix costs in terms of minimum/break even yield between 400% and 900%.
I am aware most Traders think only from one trade to the other. But after one year of almost continous trades they will have earned their Brokers above roll charges.
So I wonder how is the Ratio between naive and savvy Traders, who use Forward contracts (cfd or spread bet).
Who has experience with Islamic/Sharia accounts? They are interest free, but somewhere the Broker takes his compensation. In the BID ASK?? somewhere else. How much???

Looking Forward to your contributions

hi ez,

yep, there`s not a lot of discussion about swap costs.
mind you, it all depends on how long you keep your trades running.
if its only intra-day or a couple of days, people wouldn`t really be interested in discussing swap costs.

however if your trades take weeks/months to completion, then swap costs can have a big influence on your P/L.
it then pays to look around for a low swap broker ( eg Oanda I think).
trading cfd`s on futures is another avenue, although you dont have a lot of brokers offering this kind of cfd`s.
most do cash cfd`s and still charge you overnight swap.

disadvantage of cfd`s on futures is that the contract is only tradable for 1-3 months and your trades will be closed at expiry date or re-opened at the prevailing price of the new contract.

ActivTrades widen the spread of their cfd`s a little to account for losing out on swap charges.
Nasdaq spread normally might be 0.25-0.50 points - ActivTrades 0.50-1.00 points.
seems to be an "honest" broker: with limit orders, executed price is often in my favour.
apart from the futures brokers I haven`t seen this with forex brokers.

Hantec Markets do not charge swap nor widen spread on their cfd`s on futures.
Nasdaq spread is 0.25-0.50 points.

I have no experience with swap-free accounts.

hope this helps you on your way.