Oh yeah, also in case anyone stumbles on this thread, also gets suckered in by Mr.F-X-C-M's cleverly worded figures, here is one he has neglected to mention;
in line with this risk disclosure statement on the F-X-C-M site (Q4 2010) it says that just 23 percent of the 18,362 non-discretionary accounts are profitable. Making it the broker with the second worst profitability ratio. That puts them in place number one for getting THE HIGHEST amount of nonprofitable accounts from their top ten U.S CFTC registered RFED's (retail foreign exchange trader )
77 percent of the 18.362 retail accounts ARE LOSING MONEY. Bad traders? I think not, 43.5% of the biggest broker's (not naming them) 48,866 clients are creating a profit to take an illuion from the surveyed brokers.
The fact that they troll forums and have an alarm pop-up anytime somebody mentions F-X-C-M at a forum post (actually wonder why it turns into a link immediately?) To do damage control/spread misinformation. Hell, I'm no worker of any broker, I just don't like it when a thread becomes basically hijacked with an ad from a seriously shady broker. One of the only to have a sizable suit filed against them from their retail clients.
Anyway... as far as HFT, first and pretty much only thing we have to be worried about as retail traders would be slippery spreads.