How can a broker work against you??

I know some people attribute spikes to the main exchanges 'stop hunting' (which could just as easily be explained as a genuine market movement which just happens to retrace sharply due to lots of peoples stops being hit), but i dont see how a broker could do it.

Surely it would stick out like a sore thumb against other price feeds? Maybe the easiest way would be to fluctuate their spreads wildly so it doesnt show up on the chart. But if your brokers spreads do fluctuate so much then youd surely get another broker anyway?

Im sure its possible to defraud the customer but i dont understand why theyd bother. Seems like paranoia from people who cant blame themselves for losing money.

so where's the point in trading? We can't simply win
I was involved in trading like 8 months and then just quitted, after who is following me told me these kind of things....

In the US, at least 69% of traders lost their money during the second quarter of 2011, take a look at the sobering stats below.

After a year, according to ex Forex (and Futures) employees and other insiders, over 90% of traders lose money. Think about it, if after only 4 months almost 70% of traders are in the red, how many do you think are still profitable after 12 full months?

Of course they lose because they trade with unproven, unprofitable "systems" and have almost zero discipline, and not necessarily because some brokers can and do play tricks against them.

So can you make up your mind or what? Is it the brokers or the traders?

As I've said already a few times, this level of profitability is notably comparable to the equity markets. It has nothing to do with reputable brokers and everything to do with people who can't trade for crap. I was one of those people for years.

The data posted is not answering to my question...
Of course 90% could lose due to their discipline and other factors, but probably brokers are "helping" them losing

This still does'nt convince me. To provide liquid trading somewhere there must be sellers and buyers. If everyone wins, who is paying for their winnings? The prices may originate from a central source my worry is if there are more winners than losers this so called Business will fail.

This concerns me as they will need to pull strings somewhere so that there is enough loosers to pay for the winners. It's like a casino, there is a percentage set for winners and a percentage for losers to make money. This is just my guess, but if i am wrong please enlighten me, becuase i am starting to get paranoid with my account and these losing streaks i am having. After all we are trading on someone's losses.

AQs, I simply answered the topic's question : "How can a broker work against you".

I am in NO way implying that traders lose only because some brokers play tricks on them on occasion.

Traders lose because their system has no trading edge to begin with. But more importantly, they lose because they have no discipline and virtually zero knowledge of basic money management principles.

And due to the high leverage offered in the Forex and Futures markets, they lose much faster than stock traders.

The video posted here provides some insights on how broker could trick us...
I also know about one scalper that have A LOT of troubles trading because banks tricks him... and he got proofs about it.
Also they kicked him in no time becase is system was profitable...

So again whare's the point in trading? You can't became rich... you can't because you are an individual trader

Proof? Not that I expect that from you. It's just as easy for a stock trader to bet all of his money on a short position as it is for forex trader and if you plug enough money into losing equities, you can lose all your money awfully fast simply through devaluation. I've done it. What do you think happens when you bet on a stock priced at $0.90 and watch it drop like lead ball to $0.01? If you don't eat losses and exercise sound money management, you'll lose out in any market whether it be futures, FX, commodities, equities or anything else.

I used to be one of the people who constantly lost money and with three different brokers. Brokers who most here will agree are ok. I could've easily blamed it on the brokers, but I stopped trading, learned a little more from others here and on my own. I gained much discipline and money management, patience and traded with little emotion. Now I'm profitable without greed and I'm a scalper. I made the mistake in the past of using 80+ of my margin, which is a no no because obviously any movement in the opposite direction will eat up my position and of course I will easily blame the broker because I'll look at that the price and it'll come back to where it was and even in a profitable position had I just traded with much smaller margin.

So if you trade smart, like someone mentioned outside of ridiculous spreads, you'll be just fine. It's too easy to expose a broker spiking a price in either direction. I don't know why they would want to put themselves out there like that unless they know, they're in it to rob and disappear.

Pietpip, there is no such thing as "more" winners than losers, brokers simply transfer the losers's money to the winners and collect the spread (or at least this is what they are supposed to do....), just like the people in charge of the Lotto simply divide the jackpot between all the winners, no matter how many winners there are.

whats scary is that some here behave like junkie drug addicts, just like a junkie you can show them proof over and over how its going to kill them yet they seem to find little glimmers of BS hope that you are wrong, same with many here, you will lose everything you have simply because you REFUSE to see the facts as they are

There were only slightly over +100000 Forex trading accounts in the US back in the 2nd quarter 2011? Or are certain Brokers missing here?

I am a successful scalper day trader. It seems Oanda knows how to run an operation. I know all the past problems with them but for the most part wouldn't a beginner at least have a better chance starting out with them? The stats indicate so. Barnum once said *there's a sucker born every minute* or something close to that.

Most of the intro courses I have read explicitly express the warnings of starting out unprepared. So buyer read or weep.

Unfortunately my beginning with stocks was bad. A new beginning and knowledge with Forex has produced a profit to count on. Seems Forums are places to pick up bad habits. A Society composed of mostly losers. They should not be here but going back to basics and learning money management. Barnum is waiting for the next sucker.

1. Slow execution
2. Slippage
3. Requotes
4. Offquotes
5. Price manipulation
6. Stop hunting
7. Cancel trades

i tried oanada, alpari, etc oanda gives me these please wait windows way to often, for the record it was oanda demo

Not difficult to imagine how broker work against you, especially those in the market-making business.

They are basically front-running their clients' order. In market making business, not all the clients' orders are sent to the market. They are accumulated within the broker's until a certain net position occurred that is testing the limit of their risk management parameter. Only then will these orders be 'unleashed' onto the market, most of the time, in a single huge order.

Before this huge order are sent to the market, the broker would send in their own order ahead. The huge clients' order that they will send subsequently will spike the market price in the direction favourable to their own order. When that occurred, the broker's order will be closed very fast leaving the market risk to the clients' order. Its a low risk high return trade especially when you are talking about huge order. This is the broker's 'edge'.

Now perhaps you can understand why broker's platform tend to lag or even freeze (worst case is to 'crash' the system) or spread widen when price start to move actively. And why prices always tend to whipsaw even though the market is strongly bearish or bullish. And you are wondering who are the idiots who are still buying when price is moving down strongly and vice versa. These are not idiots but broker/big boys who close their orders. And now you know why some broker is able to give you tighter spread then the actual market. There is no free lunch.

If you are trading big lots, seriously, you should trade futures contract where it is highly regulated by exchange. You will become a glaring prey in the OTC market when you trade big lots unless you are DIRECTLY in the interbank market and not via a intermediate broker.

Hello all,

After reading this thread I couldn't resist to reply.

I'm a long term investor.I've made huge money on stocks. traded even at markets where is highly manipulated by MMs(but gains can be bigger) like otcbb an others. I have seen everything from anything at least in the stock market and there is no place where you can be sure that it's a 100% fair play.

I recently introduced myself with futures. However after covering all I can with forex brokers I came to one conclusion. These brokers cannnot be trusted. I cannot even be sure how to call these guys because they can do whatever they will. if you think for a second that there's any regulation on them, you're wrong.
They say that they earn only by speads. but in a greedy world like this and a ground place where they can do whatever they like I highly doubt about that.
I haven't earn money on forex neither lose. I didn't make even one simple order with forex broker because I coudn't be sure.

Let me give you one good of advice. if you want to play in a casino go ahead you can do it by going to a casino or by a forex broker, It doesn't make any diference to me. but if instead your desire to make money follow these main steps:

1. Trade for the long term. I'm not God neither you're. if you think you can predict what a price is going to do just right about now you have 50% of losing your money probably less because your broker(reliable one) take commissions too. In this case you need a plan so you need to commit how much time you're willing to wait. this timeframe must to be rational enough to achieve your price target (more exactly a range of price target).
But remember, The longer your strategy the safer is your bet. sometimes you might be lucky and it might take much faster.

2. Don't base your strategy on TA only. nor TA is not your main strategy for whether price will go up or down. use your head. after all behind those numbers there is an entire market that drives these prices. so base your strategy on solid facts and numbers and people's mind (psychological). for example: if you gather enough infomation that Greece is going to default and you give it 80% chance(worst case for you) and that it's going to be within 12 months ahead from now(worst case for you) than this is much more than 50% chance of a day trader's.

3. If you want to trade futures trade it in CME. this is the only place you can trust you're playing it fair. if you want to play ETFs ETNs and like those you need to remember that these are like stocks they're diluted over time! so pay attention because dilution works against time.

4. Always be ready for the worst case and be ready to it.

5. Don't be greedy. if you achieved your goal earlier it doesn't mean it has more room for profits. and be prepare for exit even though you didn't achieved your target price in your targeted timeframe.


Good luck.

What requotes and offquotes means?