Not paranoid.....BUT!

[ivanbaj]

Quote from omegapoint:

Yes, I"m a retail noob but I'm not here to provide the money.

Yes you are.

 

[milktruck]

they can't go too far off because there are people with programs to pick off prices.

get another brokers account, even a demo and compare. also quite useful is forexhelp . com

 

[cabletrader]

Quote from omegapoint:

Thing is what data comes across your monitor that data is from trades not some imposed lines in your brokers program ...right

Not really, no. They're going to feed quotes to the platform which are the most profitable for them according to their book and the quotes their liquidity providers are streaming to them.

Quote from omegapoint:
You can go back and verify from some other chart that your platform is feeding you correct data ...right

You can get a general idea from comparing charts, sure, but as forex isn't a centralized market there is no 'correct' data as such, in effect the marketmaker can quote whatever he likes. Most of them keep to within an acceptable margin otherwise they would leave themselves open to arbitrage, and don't forget they need to hedge their risk with their liquidity providers so they can't really stray too far away from the underlying market.

Quote from omegapoint:
It just seems every time I enter an order on a pullback
the price goes further south on me ...alot, and I've heard of
brokers who target accounts from some post on here a long while ago. Tell me thats not true.

It's not true. Most if not all mainstream shops don't target individual accounts unless they suspect someone is exploiting latency or such. Sure they'll shift quotes to reflect their book or to provide in-house liquidity but it's done en masse not individually. The broker isn't actively going after your money, he knows in all probability that you'll give it up yourself without any help from them! If you're finding price is going against you immediately you enter a trade then chances are it's your trading strategy which needs rethinking.

Quote from omegapoint:
Its for that reason that I use mental stops since I trust little. Yes, I"m a retail noob but I'm not here to provide the money.

Mental stops are fine but you should also place an 'emergency' stop just in case your platform or internet connection goes down. Brokers software is extremely sophisticated, I have no doubt it has the capability to build up a profile of a trader and his trading patterns if it really wanted to, it would probably know what you're planning to do even before you do!