Fact - Successful traders are put on manual execution; a dealer must ok every trade done.

Fiction - Guaranteed fills on stop loss orders.
Fact - Very few brokers accept stop loss entry orders when they are most useful such as prior to the release of important economic indicators and official government statements.
Fact - Stop loss orders are routinely filled prematurely.

Fiction - Hedging capabilities allow the customer to decide whether to close a trade or offset the trade to reduce risk.
Fact - Whether you close a trade or offset (both long and short), the P&L will be excatly the same; many brokers advertise hedging as a trading advantage.

Fiction - Simulated results can be repeated in real time.
Fact - An extraordinarily profitable trading system can be developed in minutes using readily available back testing programs.
Fact - These trading systems have little or no chance of reproducing the optomized results they produced with the benefit of hindsight.

Fiction - FOREX markets are the best for trading because trends persist and are sustained.
Fact - 90% or more of new traders relying on technical analysis don't last 3 months.

Fiction - Learn to trade using a demo account.
Fact - The stress of putting real money at risk completely changes most traders market perception; the results achieved using play money has little or no resemblence to what is achieved with real money.

Fiction - Powerful leverage advantage
Fact - Leverage is a two way street; you can win or lose quicker - thats all.

Fiction - Fair prices and narrow spreads.
Fact - Brokers routinely manipulate the rates received from the Banks to their advantage.

Fiction - Currency markets have superior liquidity
Fact - When markets are volatile liquidity dries up, resulting in price spikes.

Fiction - Broker's offering free training
Fact - Traders are taught to execute many trades a day resulting in poor performance due to inherent disadvantage of paying the spread on every trade, having your limit orders filled in a manner outlawed on NASDAQ, and having your stops executed prematurely.

Note:

Jimmy Young is a seasoned institutional forex trader having 20 years of experience with different banks. He headed up bank FX dealing rooms. He is FX profitability consultant to major European private bank. He manages funds and also trades personal money. Between 1981 and 2004 he was a foreign exchange trader at following banks: Societe Generale, Julius Baer, Fuji Bank, Indosuez, Erste, Hill Samuel, Manufactures  Hanover, Paribas, European American. www.EurUsdTrader.com