I realize this is an old post, but I've participated in discussion about this recently...

Where do you live? I'm in Kansas, near Kansas City.

What brokers do you suggest? Currently, I am planning on payforex for my CENT account and lmfx for the full account.

Any brokers we have access to are likely to be thorns in our side to us. Our government sees fit to "protect" us by putting rules in place that really make it impossible to trade with EAs. Of course, it's only under the guise of protection us poor, uninformed, gullible traders who will probably lose our life savings.

No, that's not the issue at all; they don't care about us. They DO care about the tens of millions they receive in lobbyist money from the big banks to give them exclusive rights to rake in our commissions. If they REALLY cared, then FXCM, one of the few U.S. regulated brokers, would not have been able to pull off their scandal for years. That single event is proof that the U.S. government is not looking out for us.

FIFA...First In First Out...is the primary EA killer. This is partially to do with the government wanting their "fair share" of our money. You need to close out your transactions in the order that you placed them because your older positions are more likely to show the most profits.

Opening an account with a broker not regulated by the U.S. is legal, but it is illegal for the brokerage company to offer us accounts. I've experienced this same thing the past ten years with online poker. It's become increasingly more difficult to withdraw in more than small amounts, but so far I've managed (and I quit poker last year). The poker companies had to resort to issuing checks through other companies that would disguise the origination of the checks. My bank held more than one check until the payment had actually come through.

So what can be done to get around FIFA (besides changing to non-U.S.-regulated brokers?)?

The solution would be a programming nightmare. There would need to be a system in place where open positions are kept in a central database and each EA would access the database and close the next transaction in line. All positions would need to be exactly the same size. Not at all worth it to a programmer just to cater to the U.S. market, and the execution time would probably be slowed down to a degree.

I wonder if there is any safe (and legal) way to open an offshore account (short of trusting someone else with my money) without an ungodly amount of money and use that account to fund a different broker?