Oanda spreads and FF calendar

Hi everybody,

Just a simple question...I was looking at the spread graphs posted by Oanda (http://fxtrade.oanda.com/spreads/recent_spreads.shtml) where they show the spread for different currency pairs over the last 7 days, I started to compare the change (widening) of the spread with the FF news calendar and I can't seem to find the relation between Oanda spreads and the FF calendar (assuming that the spreads at Oanda change according to important news announcements).

For example, during Monday 27/8 and Wednesday 29/8 the graph shows no increase of the spread for EUR/USD, though I see on the FF calendar that there were 2 high impact announcements during Monday 27/8:

15:00 EUR ECB President Trichet Speaks HIGH IMPACT
16:00 USD Existing Home Sales HIGH IMPACT

So my question is simple. Is there anyway to anticipate the spreads widening at Oanda based on th info provided by the FF calendar (or any other calendar)? The real question is: does Oanda changes the spread according to important news announcements or is it just some random stuff in order to discourage day trading?. Note that I'm not complaining about anything, I just want to know if the spread changes are random or if they respond to specific events.

thanks in advance and my apologies if there's a similar thread about this, I searched and found a lot of info about Oanda but nothing about Oanda spreads + FF calendar.

Ricardo, the spread spikes only occur during news announcements. Or if there is crazy action, as happened a couple weeks ago when stuff was flying ... 50 pip swings in 3 minutes. They raised their spreads then as well. You are correct though, with Orange and Red announcements you will see triple the size or more hikes on spreads. 30 or something crazy on GBP/USD is possible. They last for upwards of a few minutes, more likey a few seconds, then they go back to where they were.

The spreads remain high from around 3:45PM Est Friday - 8:30PM Est Sunday.

Spreads for exotic pairs will often be extremely high during late New York and all of the Asian session.

Spreads for all pairs will be roughly twice as much during Asia. For instance, EUR/CHF will be 1 during London and early New York and will move to 3 during the rest of the day. GBP/JPY will be 4.5, 5? I think during London - New York and raise then to 8 or something.

I don't even really pay attention to the spreads anymore

Get their demo, it is fairly accurate.

That's my point StockKJay, I was expecting to see the spreads getting wider mostly during the orange and red announcements, but it didn't happened all the time. In the spread graph from my first post in this thread You can see that the spread doesn't get any wider during Monday, when there were 2 high impact announcements. On Tuesday there were 3 medium impact and 1 high impact announcements, and the spread goes to 10 pips only at one point during Tuesday. Why is the spread increased in Tuesday but not on Monday? That's the reason I was asking if the spread was increased only during news, or maybe they also increase them at random sometimes.

Anyway, I'm new to his whole intraday-news stuff so I'll keep wacthing for now...thanks for your answer.

not all "red" events are created equal, i think thats what you are running into. to be able to predict wide spreads, you would have to know a little about the event and the backdrop. and if you want to look at this in a historical perspective, try looking at the calendar first, then check the chart to see if there is a spike. if you have a red event, AND a price spike, you will probably see some wider spreads.

Thanks for the answer Merlin, I think I get it now.