However, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs are subtracted from the results of all traders, making foreign exchange a negative-sum game.
[3] In January 2010, the CFTC proposed new rules limiting leverage to 10 to 1, based on "a number of improper practices" in the retail foreign exchange market, "among them solicitation fraud, a lack of transparency in the pricing and execution of transactions, unresponsiveness to customer complaints, and the targeting of unsophisticated, elderly, low net worth and other vulnerable individuals".
[9][10] It also refers to any retail forex broker who indicates that trading foreign exchange is a low risk, high profit investment.
[1] The foreign exchange market is a zero-sum game[2] in which there are many experienced, well-capitalized professional traders (e.g. working for banks) who can devote their attention full-time to trading.
In some variations of forex trading, the customers do not obtain normal fungible futures, but instead make a contract with some named company.
Even if the company claims to act as their "forex dealer", it is financially interested in making the retail customer lose money.