Paul Honkers

100% agree..... get a demo account, try everything and burn through it to zero, then get another demo account and burn through it to zero, then get another demo account and you will be surprised to see you can't burn through it, it actually grows consistently....then put your cash into an account. Set the demo accounts to a real number that you want to invest so that the numbers have value & meaning to you when you win or lose. It may take a week, a month, a year, depending on your time and circumstances, but it will be time well spent. Don't use real money until your have 3 months consecutive profit on a demo account if just trading daily or weekly. If trading a smaller time frame, hourlys, then 4-6 weeks of profitable trading should be enough.

try Dukascopy for real FX volume...either their platform, or MT4, via the bridge. ATC is also handy due to their ECN spreads are quite tight thus ticks up and down have more relevance than a fixed spread nickle & dime platform. The Volume indi on MT4 is completely suitable. I used to work for a bank, and I wouldn't say we were always the "smart money" but we did have size. If I needed to buy or dump 100.0 Mio US$ parcel, it would always be done in small sizes so as not to disturb the market. So while you do not have actual volume per se, you do have ticks. They are as good a guide to volume as anything else apart from the real thing.