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Comment by relaxatorium | Hacker News Reader

Is there any good information out there on what's happened recently with the garbage end of the Forex market?

I feel like I noticed the existence of this sector of finance primarily a few years ago because my spam folder stopped being about "v1agra" and Nigerian Prince scams and suddenly 90% the email scams there were about Pips and Forex algorithms.

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Not really sure what you mean. But as far as trading forex, it's relatively cheap and easy (as these things go as regulation in most jurisdictions is either lax, or non-existent) to set up shop and quite lucrative. The majority don't actually settle trades, they just match their book and trade the rest naked. Because, let's face it, it's pretty much guaranteed that almost all retail trades will blow out their accounts. I wouldn't let my money anywhere near those sleazy bucketshops.

To be slightly clearer, what I mean is that in, say, the mid to late 2000s, most of the spam email I saw was inducements to buy fake or generic or otherwise illegal prescription drugs.

Nowadays, by volume most of the spam I see seems to be trying to get people to sign up for trading "secrets" or algorithms or free pips, largely focused on Forex markets.

I wonder what changed in the world of weird spam scams to make the content shift in that way.

I'd have to guess that it's a more profitable market. I'd assume far more people are likely to be persuaded to try their hand trading since they can make a million dollars in only a couple weeks with little risk and only $1000 down! A lot of shops have introducing broker or similar programs where you sign-up clients for them and get a cut of the spread for every trade or commission or similar. Has the benefit of not being illegal, and, free money!

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