Resources

UK regulator for financial firms including brokers, spread-betting and CFD providers, with consumer warnings and its ScamSmart campaign. Relevant to anyone using a UK-regulated broker or prop firm.

Official register of firms and individuals authorised by the FCA, plus the warning list of unauthorised firms and clones. Search a firm's name and reference number before dealing with anyone claiming UK regulation.

The Registration Deficient list: foreign firms soliciting US customers for forex, binary options or crypto derivatives without the required CFTC registration. Check it before opening an account with an offshore broker.

Securities Investor Protection Corporation: protects customers' securities and cash (up to $500,000) if a member US brokerage fails. Verify a broker's SIPC membership here; note it does not cover trading losses or futures.

ASIC's consumer site with guides on investing, trading risks and a searchable list of companies you should not deal with. Australia's equivalent of Investor.gov.

Australia's corporate and markets regulator, licensing brokers and CFD providers and publishing enforcement actions. Many forex and CFD brokers hold ASIC licences, so check the licence number here.

Free lookup of any US broker, brokerage firm or investment adviser: registration status, employment history, customer complaints and disciplinary events. Run it on any person or firm before sending money.

Federal regulator for US futures, options on futures, swaps and retail forex, and the agency behind the Commitments of Traders report. Its fraud advisories cover forex, precious metals and crypto scams.

Self-regulatory organisation for the US derivatives industry; futures brokers, CTAs and retail forex dealers must be members. Publishes rules, arbitration and investor information.

Background Affiliation Status Information Center: free lookup of any futures or forex firm or individual's NFA registration, disciplinary history and CFTC actions. The futures equivalent of BrokerCheck.

Subreddit focused on futures: platforms, data feeds, margins, prop-firm rules and strategy discussion. A good first stop for practical questions like which broker or feed to use.

Largest general day-trading subreddit covering stocks, futures and options, with a heavily used wiki and daily discussion threads. Quality varies wildly; use it for questions and sanity checks, not for setups.

Community for options sellers: wheel strategy, covered calls, credit spreads and the tail risks that come with them. Useful for seeing real income-strategy results, including the bad months.

Main forex subreddit with broker discussions, prop-firm experiences and strategy threads. Strict rules against signal selling help keep it more honest than most forex spaces online.

Sam Ro's newsletter on the stock market and economy, built around charts and the argument that long-run base rates matter more than headlines. Free and paid tiers; good perspective for traders who over-react to news.