There’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in the market with regards to who exactly are the players that constitute our industry. Some call Affiliates IBs or vice versa, some don’t understand the nature of publisher networks and some can’t really tell the difference between one broker and another, including their modus operandi.
In the coming weeks I will introduce series of articles in order to try and make this picture a bit clearer. In general, Forex industry is comprised of four types of players:
- Traders – most basic unit of the Forex market, these are private individuals, institutions, sophisticated investors and other who actually trade Forex.
- Affiliates and IBs – are those who ‘introduce’ traders to Brokers
- Money Managers (CTAs) – those who manage money on behalf of traders
- Brokers – those who allow traders to access the Forex market
Other than that, there are Regulators, Advertisement Networks (Forex content websites), Software Providers (trading platforms, automatic robot developers, charts, etc.) and Liquidity Providers to name a few.
Each player has their own perception of the market, their own interests and business models. Some profit from other’s losses and some gain regardless of results.
Bottom Line: Everybody’s making money from Forex except the traders themselves.
Michael
