This article will compare and contrast where the retail forex trading industry started and where it has progressed to since retail trading became available to the public. We will examine 4 areas: Retail Forex Brokers, Forex Educational Providers, Indicators and Trading Systems, and Forex Website Quality. In 2000, the CFTC won the authority to regulate forex trading and by 2008 most of the major problems were cleared up related to regulation of the industry in the USA.

When retail trading became available to online traders, the advantages over trading the stock and options market were very clear. Liquidity and leverage were built in. Equity, index and options traders worldwide became immediately attracted to the forex market. As of November 2012 this daily turnover had exceeded $5.0 trillion per day, 1.5 trillion per day of this total was retail forex traders. Thousands of people open retail brokerage accounts every year, and 24 hour trading and leverage are the drawing cards.