it's half time so I'll write something
Oanda is one of the few brokers with whom a trading account can be opened with any
amount - $1 up. Oanda now have 2 charting-order entry programs, OANDA fxTrade
their proprietary program which would be used for 'any amount' accounts, and MetaTrader 4
which today most fx brokers offer. MT4 has fixed lot sizes, micro-lots, mini-lots and lots -
$1,000 , $10,000 , $100,000 amounts for US base pairs. next is margin: to open
an account, Oanda has no minimum, other brokers may require a minimum related
to which size lot you want to trade. next is leverage: in the US and Canada leverage
has been reduced to 50:1 from 500:1 , the EU and elsewhere still have up to 500:1
but I think US citizens aren't able to open an account with them, Canadians can except
for the province I live in - BC
again with the OANDA fxTrade platform I think any leverage amount can be set in the
program, not sure if or how that's done in MT4
margin: to trade $10,000 units as Oanda calls them of the eurusd at a price of 1.4303
at 50:1 leverage requires $286.06 ; that amount is good for daytrading and overnight
in order to daytrade the same amount as the 6E Euro FX futures contract, $3,575.75
is required, but no additional funds to hold o/n, to daytrade the 6E however only requires
$500 but increases to $4,320 (?) to trade o/n
http://fxtrade.oanda.ca/account/margin-calculator
a major difference between futures and spot-fx pairs trading is that futures trading can
go into 'overloss', at least in theory, this may have changed now for electronic trading
since the broker-client account software can be programmed to close a trade if and
when the minimum margin amount is breached, this has always been the case with
fx accounts, client can't lose more than is in their account
after going through the account opening process and depositing funds, once the broker
has assigned the funds to an account and notified you you can begin trading via the
platform of your choice by entering Buy/Sell/Close orders. for fx no statements are
issued since trades and accounts balance are updated in realtime in the platform