Regulated or Unregulated? That`s the question. Let me say you something. From what I have experienced, there is a lot to be said about both, however, excuse my biased ass, but I am an advocate for unregulated brokers as I feel there are more advantages for the clients trading via an unregulated broker compared to regulated brokers.
My reasoning:
Becoming regulated, for the broker as a company is a very expensive thing to do, therefore they look at recuperating those funds back in, VIA their clients. SO, what they tend to do, is bump up the client costs through widening the spread, offering lower leverage, and bumping up the trade commission charge per trade that gets placed.
UNregualted brokers on the other hand, do not have this grand expense, therefore they make money via alternative ways, but allow the clients a little more freedom for example by offering a higher leverage- which I myself find to be more useful and beneficial to my style of trading, better spreads and lower trade commissions.
Also I want to remind you the cases of so called Regulated brokers like JP markets or Pepperstone. Whats the conclusion? Theres no insurance with Regulated ones so I prefer to test and then use even Unregulated broker which gives me good trading conditions and experience at all.