Oanda Feedback
- Thread starter Ramy3
- Start date
Oanda Corp
Canadian Division
Specialization in Forex and most recently CFD's ( Brett, Corn, Oil, Bonds, SP500, etc)
They ARE a dealing desk and one of the biggest market makers in North America.
This is my opinion and experiences. It does not reflect my status as a mod here.
I have used Oanda for 3 years, 1 year demo, 2 years live.
In that time I have had a few gripes as well as a few honourable mentions for them.
Cons:
Firstly I dislike their news spreads even sometimes when there's not even any news at all! This isn't my first year into trading but it was hard as a scalper back in the day and even now to scalp using oanda sometimes because of their news spreads go from normal 0.9-1.2 on the EUR to 20 before,during, and after news events. I distinctly remember a case where I was trading the pound and they have I believe a 2 pip spread or so around it and it was during a quiet asia session no news, no random person popping up to say hey we're printing money or going to war. I was rolling with with a trade in GBP/USD and it was near my stop hovering above 7 pips from it. In a minute's instance I see no candle down or any stab down I was out of my trade. The spread had no instance of suddenly widening so I called about this and they claimed i just simple got stopped out and that there was nothing wrong with them just me. This is hard to tell since I don't have access to confirm or deny their part in all this but that's one gripe I have with them.
Another one is their support service, when metatrader is giving me delays in fills from as low as 10 second delay in confirmation up to 1 min I gave them a service call and asked about it. The operator told me to describe the steps leading up to this and I started by stating that I was trying to go long on the eur/usd and I set everything in place sent my order and it got stuck on processing and I knew it wasn't my internet because I was watching a stream, I did a pingtest and speedtest and they showed me at 20ms to the nearest server and 0 packet loss. The operator responds in kind with, "Ok. What is a long position?" I was thinking maybe its just trader slang so I reworded and said I bought into the EUR/USD with this many units on Metatrader 4. This operator then proceeded to ask me what a pair was... It was just downhill from there and if this operator was trolling me or just asking me for a lesson it was not worth my time to teach them while their getting paid.
Pros:
That aside I really don't have much to really dislike about them anymore.
They are solid when it comes to slippage you rarely get slipped, you do occasionally but that's the nature of the business.
What I did like about them and this is KEY! Was I believe her name was Patricia who was responding to my further inquiry about the new margin requirements. It said I could put down X amount of units and I put just shy of that maybe only about 60% of which I could put at my max margin but I was in the red about -7 pips and I was getting a margin warning even though this is less than 1% of my account. She had told me it was peculiar and that they'd look into it because according to their margin page I still had 40% of my margin still available to use and wasn't over my margin. I thought ok I guess this is a problem their looking into I'll be on my way. About 15 mins after the phone call I get a call from Oanda I thought oh wow that was quick. It was Patricia! She explained to me that it was actually correct because of the new regulation for margin changes and it was sent out a few weeks ago via email that IIROC was changing our margins to restrict us even more position wise. I couldn't believe the swiftness in their service and the major contrast from not even knowing what a long position was to this definitive and precise answer with a prompt response. So if your reading this Oanda I think Patricia is due for a raise!
I like their statistics and what was coined to me before as the "dumb money tool" as reference to their open order books and regular position statistics. Given the statistic that 90% of traders lose you just go where the 10% are going and Oanda's statistics are the open proof of that.
All in all I am still with them because they are very well regulated, they don't seem like they would fold overnight and if they do they are CPIF protected so if they suddenly close up shop their insured and I will get my money back. They have come a long way in my experience with them and I hope they continue pushing forward and maybe give me a better tick rate to my platform
so that if I decide to quant one day they'd be my hands down no question choice.My Final Break Down
Execution 8/10
This includes slippage and what not, but so far I have no complaints, I get the odd delay from time to time up to 20 seconds in non-irregular environments.
Customer Support was 2/10 but is now a 8/10
I don't get Patricia all the time, I am rejoiced when I do though!
Spread 9/10
Generally lowest I've seen around but not during high news times or asia market hours. Still randomly spikes from time to time.
Research and Analysis 10/10
Though not a leading decision maker still nice to see.
Software and Tools 8/10
Their platform is ok but it feels like it's lacking something. Their mobile device platform since I am on iOS4 still was behind androids with the pinch to zoom and even indicators!
Withdraw and Deposit N/A
I have not done any withdraws with them yet. Still developing as it is and growing accounts! But from my understanding there's no funny business they give you a wide range of services from Cheque to wire.
Recommendation: Solid Yes.
love-the-pips
Member
I have used Oanda for a couple of years now. I have a couple of bad memories but 99% of the time they have been great.
Their fxTrade platform is the best platform I have ever traded on. It's fully customisable and user friendly.
Would recommend.
Their fxTrade platform is the best platform I have ever traded on. It's fully customisable and user friendly.
Would recommend.
StackingPip
Active Member
I am using Oanda for 2 years now.
Did not really trade within the 1st year and a half..
For the last half year, I have no issue to report.
The thing that I really like is that their MT4 is link to FX trade.
Therefore I can open a trade on my desktop with MT4 and manage 'it on my mobile with FX Trade.
The opposite is also true.
Seb.
Did not really trade within the 1st year and a half..
For the last half year, I have no issue to report.
The thing that I really like is that their MT4 is link to FX trade.
Therefore I can open a trade on my desktop with MT4 and manage 'it on my mobile with FX Trade.
The opposite is also true.
Seb.
JohnsMoneyTree
Active Member
I've used Oanda for a few years, but when it comes to their APIs their fees are very high to use their APIs. I'm not a fan of MT4, so using MQL for EAs isn't quite an option for me. Oanda is nice because they have a few native APIs like Java, but the fees start at $600 per month with a $50 discount for every $1M worth of leveraged trade that you do. So if you can make $12M worth of leveraged trade each month you can use their API for free.
JohnsMoneyTree
Active Member
Jack said:
Holy hell, I have not noticed this. I'll be right back, I have some re-writing to do....
JohnsMoneyTree said:
The only downside is that quotes are polling based (thanks to it being a web get, JASON formatted response, type system,) vs streaming like with the Java API. But you can poll pretty frequently, so really it's still very usable for all but HFT or latency arbing strats.
UPDATE
I am pleased with the result of the situation based on my experience only. I was given my take profit order where I had placed it like nothing had happened (even though price had continued on my way). I also had a stop loss in place, duh, so I am assuming that would have triggered properly had price gone against me.
I usually move to break even when my first take profit is hit and I was unable to do this because of the down time so that could have screwed me over, but it didn't.
This situation mainly would have impacted traders that do not use limit orders and traders that were trying to place an order at the time of the down time. I think they could have called or emailed OANDA in this situation and then they would have something to back up the fact that they were trying to get in or out of the market.
I am curious to hear everyone else's experience during the down time and if anyone got screwed over? I wonder how OANDA is going to handle it and I am hoping they will do something to entice us traders to stay with them. I am not going to jump ship yet because I love everything about their trading environment except the widening of spreads during news events, but I'm not sure if there is a U.S. broker out there that doesn't do this. This is the first bad experience I have had with them and no harm was done to me.
I am pleased with the result of the situation based on my experience only. I was given my take profit order where I had placed it like nothing had happened (even though price had continued on my way). I also had a stop loss in place, duh, so I am assuming that would have triggered properly had price gone against me.
I usually move to break even when my first take profit is hit and I was unable to do this because of the down time so that could have screwed me over, but it didn't.
This situation mainly would have impacted traders that do not use limit orders and traders that were trying to place an order at the time of the down time. I think they could have called or emailed OANDA in this situation and then they would have something to back up the fact that they were trying to get in or out of the market.
I am curious to hear everyone else's experience during the down time and if anyone got screwed over? I wonder how OANDA is going to handle it and I am hoping they will do something to entice us traders to stay with them. I am not going to jump ship yet because I love everything about their trading environment except the widening of spreads during news events, but I'm not sure if there is a U.S. broker out there that doesn't do this. This is the first bad experience I have had with them and no harm was done to me.
JohnsMoneyTree
Active Member
I had a similar situation where my TP was hit and nothing of value was lost. It's interesting - over on the babypips forums there was a hot discussion regarding people not setting SL levels to avoid "spread widening". The idea was to monitor open positions and get an alert triggered via SMS or email when a SL level was reached, then manually decide whether or not to close the order at that time. I don't buy into this strategy myself and always set a SL when I place the order. Still, I wonder how many people were hammered by this.
I wonder if this was just their website or if MT4 users were also affected. I know that their REST API was working just fine, but I use their own app rather than MT4 to monitor my accounts.
I wonder if this was just their website or if MT4 users were also affected. I know that their REST API was working just fine, but I use their own app rather than MT4 to monitor my accounts.
I know the website was down and the trading platform fxTrade was down. The fxTrade phone app was also down. I HEARD that MT4 was also down.
That is interesting strategy, but there is probably too much emotion involved for it. I can see how it might help with the spread widening, but the spreads normally only widen during extremely volatile news events so what happens when they don't close it in time or freeze up emotionally? They get hammered. I'd rather get stopped out then risk getting CRUSHED because all it takes is one bad loss to really set back your progress.
That is interesting strategy, but there is probably too much emotion involved for it. I can see how it might help with the spread widening, but the spreads normally only widen during extremely volatile news events so what happens when they don't close it in time or freeze up emotionally? They get hammered. I'd rather get stopped out then risk getting CRUSHED because all it takes is one bad loss to really set back your progress.
To be bluntly honest, no technology is reliable look at all the big name sites and tech that have been simply DDOS'd and it seems like DDOSing isn't too hard to do either.
But Oanda will honor the orders IF IT'S SET!
If you set an order the order sits on Oanda's servers and if they have a backlog to process they will process it. Technically they can always send the order to whom ever is matching them the old fashion way via phone call to a floor or liquidity provider and then when they clear the orders they just send it to a clearing company. However in this day and age everything is automated but still problems happen and I guess they can fall back if needed.
There was a story about the pre-market trading thing oanda had back in the day, but the only person that knew how to game it was killing them. So they just cut the guy his cheque and said no more pre-market trading lol.
Who here remembers before mobile phones became smart phones you had to either trade via a computer or call in and you must have the proper terminology etiquette such as "Nothing done" and then hang up.
But Oanda will honor the orders IF IT'S SET!
If you set an order the order sits on Oanda's servers and if they have a backlog to process they will process it. Technically they can always send the order to whom ever is matching them the old fashion way via phone call to a floor or liquidity provider and then when they clear the orders they just send it to a clearing company. However in this day and age everything is automated but still problems happen and I guess they can fall back if needed.
There was a story about the pre-market trading thing oanda had back in the day, but the only person that knew how to game it was killing them. So they just cut the guy his cheque and said no more pre-market trading lol.
Who here remembers before mobile phones became smart phones you had to either trade via a computer or call in and you must have the proper terminology etiquette such as "Nothing done" and then hang up.
I honestly think Oanda handled that pretty well.
Smooth after getting their net issues restored.. and clients are being made whole on any orders that should have executed while they were down.
They even jumped on social media to keep people posted about the outage.. not many do that.
:thumbsup:
Smooth after getting their net issues restored.. and clients are being made whole on any orders that should have executed while they were down.
They even jumped on social media to keep people posted about the outage.. not many do that.
:thumbsup:
Re: Just When You Thought You'd Seen It All...
Today I witnessed something peculiar following the USD PPI data release.
Predictably there was a volatility injection and the EURUSD moved 240 pips.
As the move began I noticed a divergence between the bid price on MT4 and the bid and ask prices on an external EA I use for trade execution and management.
Both the bid and ask on the EA were at totally different prices to the bid price on MT4!
First the EA bid ask were both 20 pips below the MT4 bid price, then, 20 pips above the price on the chart!
I should mention that the EA is connected directly to the broker so as far as broker is concerned it is an MT4 terminal! (or is it?)
So whats all the fuss? its just the spread, right? wrong. The spread was not the issue here, it was the complete disconnection between the price at which you would have bought or sold and the advertised price on the chart!
The bid ask prices were so erratic it was like a cyber attack on the pricing engine.
So, if you use MT4 dont be fooled in to thinking the price you see is the price your trading at, they are two totally different things, apparently!
I did take a screen shot but forgot to save it.. probably becuase I was happy to have walked away with 80+ pips
Today I witnessed something peculiar following the USD PPI data release.
Predictably there was a volatility injection and the EURUSD moved 240 pips.
As the move began I noticed a divergence between the bid price on MT4 and the bid and ask prices on an external EA I use for trade execution and management.
Both the bid and ask on the EA were at totally different prices to the bid price on MT4!
First the EA bid ask were both 20 pips below the MT4 bid price, then, 20 pips above the price on the chart!
I should mention that the EA is connected directly to the broker so as far as broker is concerned it is an MT4 terminal! (or is it?)
So whats all the fuss? its just the spread, right? wrong. The spread was not the issue here, it was the complete disconnection between the price at which you would have bought or sold and the advertised price on the chart!
The bid ask prices were so erratic it was like a cyber attack on the pricing engine.
So, if you use MT4 dont be fooled in to thinking the price you see is the price your trading at, they are two totally different things, apparently!
I did take a screen shot but forgot to save it.. probably becuase I was happy to have walked away with 80+ pips
