1) There are two types of forex broker: the direct access broker and the bucket shop. The direct access broker gives you direct access to the banks (Bear Stearns, UBS, Deutsche Bank etc) while the bucket shop makes its own market. Avoid bucket shops at all costs. Some direct access brokers are EFX, Interactive Brokers (IdealPro) and hotspotfx.
2) There's tick volume and some data providers allow you to subscribe to the volume of particular banks but total interbank volume is not available. Volume on futures is available but often too light to be useful. CME Euro futures are very liquid though.
3) I wouldn't say currencies trend necessarily. It depends entirely on the currency pair. USD is in a long term down trend against the European currencies. I think swing trading opportunities are best.
4) I wouldn't use less than a 30 minute chart. 4 hours and daily charts are also good. Direct access brokers couldn't care less how you trade. Bucket shops will try to fiddle you.
5) Extreme volatility and wide spreads immediately after economic news.
6) The same one you use for index futures will work just as well for fx.
7) A full sized lot is $100,000 and leverage is typically 100:1 so you need $1000 to trade 1 lot. So for GBP/USD and EUR/USD each pip is worth $10. With EFX you can trade $10,000 lots and with IdealPro you can trade any size above $25,000.
8) EFX and IB.
9) Do your own research before pestering me with such simple newbie questions again.
