I am an independent trader and currently my market of choice is foreign currency. In the last year the US federal regulatory authority that governs the domestic currency market has passed two new restrictive regulations. The first one in the Spring outlawed hedging, an advanced technique that the regulators thought was too confusing for traders. The second one just coming into effect now substantially decreases the margin percentage rights that traders have. Their notion for doing that is to protect traders from the volatile swings in currencies, which makes some sense theoretically but also reduces the upside potential for traders who know what they're doing.
On the upside, I just converted my account to my trading company's UK branch, which is governed by UK rules instead. And as a result I get a platform that is unencumbered by the rules put into effect by my nanny state. So in an unusual exception to the common convention, here is a case where the UK has greater liberty than the US.
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