My family traded for decades, but not forex. We traded plastic raw materials, so when we moved into currencies we were confused about how the market actually works.
We learned the hard way. Part of our losses came from the wrong understanding of trading, and part came from bad trading conditions on the broker we were using.
Key takeaways
There is no cheap or expensive in currencies, so a falling price usually keeps falling and a rising price usually keeps rising.
Slippage is normal around news, but some firms do it deliberately when nothing is going on just to push you into losses.
Forex is regulated with a set price, yet some firms move it to suit themselves, for example lifting price artificially when a lot of clients are selling.
Closing your trades or opening them when you should be the one doing it manually is another way conditions get stacked against the client.
These practices existed with old brokers and now show up with prop firms, since at least ten launch every day with no barrier to entry.
On Propvator, fair trading conditions is one of the requirements for a firm to be verified.
Why the market confused us at first
We assumed the logical move was to buy when price looks cheap and sell when it looks expensive, exactly like you would with a product on sale.
In practice forex is the opposite. When the price drops it most probably will go lower, and when it increases it most probably will go higher.
This trips up more than product traders. Most of us are used to physical goods, so we expect the same reaction, and the market simply does not move that way.
What the broker was doing in the background
The broker had a good reputation, multiple branches around the world, and treated clients professionally. In practice there was a lot going on behind the scenes.
They ran slippage on purpose when there was no news. They moved price away from the regulated price to fit their needs. They had platform issues that closed or opened trades for you.
A lot of our losses, which ran into the millions, came from that manipulation rather than the market itself.
“So they do slippage on purpose when there’s nothing going on, just to make you incur losses.”
The positive route instead of attacking bad firms
I decided not to go after the firms doing price manipulation and calling them out one by one.
Instead we focus on firms that are actually reliable and promote those. If the reliable ones get enough attention, the unreliable ones get knocked out on their own.
That is the plan. If a firm is not listed on Propvator, that means we do not think you should trade with them, and we let that speak for itself.
If you are not sure which firms actually play fair, Propvator AI (Prop Firm Matcher) can point you to trusted firms that fit how you trade.
Skip the guesswork and compare only firms that pass the fair conditions check on Propvator.