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sqa said:
Oanda must have been hilarious to watch today.

This is the unfortunate truth of algorithmic trading.

Companies like IMC Markets in Amsterdam full of quants planning their next cyber attack on the markets.

Thats what low latency is about. Its about spamming the terminals with fake bids and offers so fast that even the charting software doesnt recognise the change in price.

Its the perfect crime, tell everyone your reducing their execution times when in reality the increased network speed is being used to spam their terminals. Untraceable becuase its too fast for the software to detect.

Youve seen it here first folks! Be careful out there.
 
I also want to add that the increased activity at the time of the news release caused a momentary MT4 platform outage, also, when I switched across to a Pepperstone account the price divergence was the same.

It seems like both brokers use the same "ECN" backbones to carry out their dirty work whilst they decide how much "exposure" to take on, aka which accounts to burn.
 
Re: Flash Trades

It seems the manipulation now is all 'back-end' so the brokers and banks have little to worry about.

As long as the money is being shaken from traders pockets it will filter down (or up) to the entities paying the ECN companies for their "liquidity services".

Here's an interesting article that talks about "flash trades" which sounds a lot like what Ive experienced on MT4, Worth a read.

http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/computerized_front_running.php

Id be very interested to know what the forum members here think of this and how it impacts us traders?
 
HFT is being setup as the fall-guy in the next crash. Even Goldman has unwound most of its HFT activities, per some recent discussion I've seen. So, yes, it still happens, but the major players generally know when to cut & run. Which seems to be the name of the game lately.
 
... apparently the 'early adopters' made a killing on equities, not the case now. Additionally, I know that FX is manipulated, that is why I like to trade it. As for HFT, I do not believe that it is an issue for FX, unless scalping, even then possibly not.
 
Re: ICT Withdrawal Request

ICT just tweeted that Oanda have been refusing his withdrawal request for the past month! and are asking him questions regarding his financial statements which he presumably made when applying for the account.

Sounds to me like their legal department trying to weasel out of paying him what they owe.

I know Banks will screw you over given half a chance, but what about brokers? How common a problem is this? Any comments?
 
Re: ICT Withdrawal Request

foreigner said:
ICT just tweeted that Oanda have been refusing his withdrawal request for the past month! and are asking him questions regarding his financial statements which he presumably made when applying for the account.

Sounds to me like their legal department trying to weasel out of paying him what they owe.

I know Banks will screw you over given half a chance, but what about brokers? How common a problem is this? Any comments?
getting more like a soap opera everyday :eek:
 
I highly doubt Oanda is having issues with paying people out. Not only are they over capitalized in the US (atop of the already high required minimums,) but we're talking about a broker who, to date, has had zero regulatory actions against them.

That being said, I'm curious on what was the cause of his withdrawal delay.

Also, I can't find the tweet you mentioned..
 
Jack said:
I highly doubt Oanda is having issues with paying people out. Not only are they over capitalized in the US (atop of the already high required minimums,) but we're talking about a broker who, to date, has had zero regulatory actions against them.

That being said, I'm curious on what was the cause of his withdrawal delay.

Also, I can't find the tweet you mentioned..

ICT deletes about 95% of his tweets, so that's why you can't find them.

Basically, their Check writing service provider (really, you outsourced that?) was "down" or unavailable. Then they were asking for details of accounts that really have nothing to do with taking a Withdrawal.

My guess (given the only reason he's withdrawing from Oanda is that it's the 5k to 1mil account) is that it's enough money for some new set of back-side anti-money laundering rules kicked in and they really don't want to use a Check system for that. Given the likely methods ICT has a lot of his money protected (US-based solutions), I'm pretty sure some flags went up for the Intern that had simply never seen it and didn't quite know what to do. They'll more than likely wire the money just fine.
 
Yeah, AML rules can be pretty intense and transactions over $10k do trigger some additional monitoring. It's not so much a broker think as it is banking and general controls.
 
Their check system might actually be down, and the AML rules are kicking in, though ICT post their request for information they wouldn't need. Which was odd.

I know a lot of Japanese (and a bit of the language), so I'm fairly attuned to the ways to say "no" without saying "no". It seems the message is "pay the danged Wire Fee". >:D
 
Apparently the issues with Oanda were resolved as all the tweets have been scrubbed from ICT's Twitter account.... I am pretty curious as I have been trading with Oanda for a couple years now.
 
pipmart said:
Apparently the issues with Oanda were resolved as all the tweets have been scrubbed from ICT's Twitter account.... I am pretty curious as I have been trading with Oanda for a couple years now.

The important details were two fold: 1) the Check system was claimed to be down (that's why he went to Twitter in the first place). 2) Someone wanted significantly more information about his assets than is needed to verify that he's a real person.

Though the 3rd detail that it's probably a massive withdrawal can't be ignored.
 
OANDA took $45 million capital hit in January

http://leaprate.us8.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=5c70f68b2b53b98f4f5237e7b&id=d1cec3ba1d&e=45a77429fe

.... CFTC January data for retail forex brokers is now out, and (not surprisingly) showed a 15% decline in client assets at US industry leader FXCM Inc (NYSE:FXCM) and an overall 5% decline in US retail forex client assets. Again, not surprising given that January 15 saw a lot of clients wiped out in the Swiss Franc spike – and the creation of significant negative client balances at a number of retail forex brokers worldwide.
However digging deeper, the CFTC data uncovered a fairly accurate picture, in our view, of what January 15 meant at other leading US retail forex brokers – at least in their US operations.
The one datapoint which stuck out was the $45 million decline from December to January in OANDA’s adjusted net capital. OANDA’s capital cushion (i.e. excess net capital) dropped from more than $61 million to under $16 million..................
 
The material changes we have made in our client agreement with you are:

Clause 12 (e) Special Handling for Large Transactions. If a Margin Closeout occurs or one or more Transactions in your Account result in the immediate closure of a Trade or series of Trades, in either case with an aggregate notional value that exceeds $100,000,000 USD equivalent in any major currency pair (e.g., a pair comprised of any two of AUD, CAD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY, USD), or $30,000,000 USD equivalent in any other instrument, then OANDA will use commercially reasonable efforts to execute your Trade(s). OANDA reserves the right to debit your Account for the difference between the price shown in fxTrade at the time of your Trades and an amount equal to 1.0-pip above OANDA’s actual volume-weighted cost of clearing those Trades.

Clause 15. Risk Acknowledgement. You acknowledge that trading in Foreign Currency Contracts and CFDs carries a high degree of risk and that you have familiarised yourself with the risks described in OANDA’s Risk Disclosure Statement. These risks include, without limitation, the following: (i) it is possible to incur a loss if, after your acquisition of an investment, exchange rates change to your detriment, even if the price of the underlying currency to which the Trade relates remains unchanged; and (ii) you may sustain a total loss of the Margin Requirement in respect of your Account that you deposit with or pay to us to establish or maintain a position and, if the market moves against you, you may be required to pay substantial additional funds at short notice but if you fail to do so within the required time, your investment position may be liquidated at a loss to you and you will be liable for any remaining deficit in your Account.

OANDA Europe Limited has removed the following clause:
Clause 16 - Maximum Losses. OANDA warrants and represents that the fxTrade System has been designed so that your total aggregate Realised Loss can never exceed the sum of the total aggregate deposits made to your Account and your total aggregate Realised Profit.
 
Just wondering why the tick volume for Oanda is so low compared to other brokers as compared on the site -> http://www.myfxbook.com/forex-broker-volume

Is Oanda not as big player as they claim to be? or is the tick data skewed from myfxbook?

Note: I do understand that mybook only uses MT4 accounts. So fxtrade platform from Oanda is not used, and those using custom API's are excluded also.
 
leverage said:
Just wondering why the tick volume for Oanda is so low compared to other brokers as compared on the site -> http://www.myfxbook.com/forex-broker-volume

Is Oanda not as big player as they claim to be? or is the tick data skewed from myfxbook?

Err... neither?

Tick volume does not equal liquidity.

Your post is a prime example of why I went off on MyFXBook when they first came out with this feature. When MyFXBook first announced the feature on their blog, I posted about how they are misleading people to think the wrong thing about tick volume.

In fact, you can read it here:

http://blog.myfxbook.com/2013/01/14/forex-volume/comment-page-1/#comment-3462
 
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