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Foreign exchange fraud is any trading scheme used to defraud traders by convincing them that they can expect to gain a high profit by trading in the foreign exchange market.
Currency trading became a common form of fraud in early 2008, according to Michael Dunn of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.[1]
The foreign exchange market is at best a zero-sum game,[2] meaning that whatever one trader gains, another loses.
However, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs are subtracted from the results of all traders, making foreign exchange a negative-sum game.
Retail traders are undercapitalized. Thus, they are subject to the problem of gambler's ruin: in a "fair game" (one with no information advantages) the player with the lower amount of capital has a higher probability of going bankrupt than a high-capital player. The retail trader always pays the bid/ask spread which makes their odds of winning less than those of a fair game. Additional costs may include margin interest or, if a spot position is kept open for more than one day, the trade may be "resettled" each day, each time costing the full bid/ask spread. 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. The contract is directly between the customer and the pseudo-dealer, so it is an off-exchange one; it cannot be normally registered and traded on futures exchanges.[13]
Although it is possible for a few experts to successfully arbitrage the market for an unusually large return, this does not mean that a larger number could earn the same returns even given the same tools, techniques, and data sources. This is because the arbitrages are essentially drawn from a pool of finite size; although information about how to capture arbitrages is a nonrival good, the arbitrages themselves are a rival good. In analogy: the total amount of buried treasure on an island is the same, regardless of how many treasure hunters have bought copies of the treasure map.
Currency trading became a common form of fraud in early 2008, according to Michael Dunn of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.[1]
The foreign exchange market is at best a zero-sum game,[2] meaning that whatever one trader gains, another loses.
However, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs are subtracted from the results of all traders, making foreign exchange a negative-sum game.
Not beating the market
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. An inexperienced retail trader will have a significant information disadvantage compared to these traders.Retail traders are undercapitalized. Thus, they are subject to the problem of gambler's ruin: in a "fair game" (one with no information advantages) the player with the lower amount of capital has a higher probability of going bankrupt than a high-capital player. The retail trader always pays the bid/ask spread which makes their odds of winning less than those of a fair game. Additional costs may include margin interest or, if a spot position is kept open for more than one day, the trade may be "resettled" each day, each time costing the full bid/ask spread. 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. The contract is directly between the customer and the pseudo-dealer, so it is an off-exchange one; it cannot be normally registered and traded on futures exchanges.[13]
Although it is possible for a few experts to successfully arbitrage the market for an unusually large return, this does not mean that a larger number could earn the same returns even given the same tools, techniques, and data sources. This is because the arbitrages are essentially drawn from a pool of finite size; although information about how to capture arbitrages is a nonrival good, the arbitrages themselves are a rival good. In analogy: the total amount of buried treasure on an island is the same, regardless of how many treasure hunters have bought copies of the treasure map.
