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changing presepctive on Oanda

  • #1
  • First Post: Oct 5, 2007 12:47pm Oct 5, 2007 12:47pm
before i thought all DD were evil... but i really like the level of effort they put in providing transparency like recording all the spreads of the past 7 days and such.

am i being a sucker by opening a new account with Oanda? I still do love MBTrading, but going back and forth from MT4 and the Navigator gets annoying.

but its okay since I dont scalp (anymore) and like to take at least 3 digit pips which takes anywehre from 2~3 days to even weeks.
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  • #2
  • Oct 5, 2007 5:23pm Oct 5, 2007 5:23pm
As far as I understand, Oanda doesn't have a "typical" dealing desk, it's all automated (that's what they claim...).

Anyway, I think it's the best option for small accounts. I'm going live with Oanda in a week or two.
"I say high, You say low, You say why, and I say I don't know..."
  • #3
  • Oct 5, 2007 5:47pm Oct 5, 2007 5:47pm
yea i will try it out.

also compared to MBTrading, is Oanda actually cheaper for trading the EURUSD? many times i was able to get 0 spread on EURUSD from MBT but the commissions come out to be quite a bit.
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  • #4
  • Oct 5, 2007 6:27pm Oct 5, 2007 6:27pm
Quoting jjk2
also compared to MBTrading, is Oanda actually cheaper for trading the EURUSD? many times i was able to get 0 spread on EURUSD from MBT but the commissions come out to be quite a bit.
I'm not sure if Oanda is actually cheaper but is definitively better than the other DD brokers. I have a very small account with Oanda, and next year after this NFA cap. requirement thing is over I might open another small account with EFX.
"I say high, You say low, You say why, and I say I don't know..."
  • #5
  • Oct 6, 2007 7:37am Oct 6, 2007 7:37am
Quoting Ricardo.
I'm not sure if Oanda is actually cheaper but is definitively better than the other DD brokers. I have a very small account with Oanda, and next year after this NFA cap. requirement thing is over I might open another small account with EFX.
I agree with Ricardo. It's the lesser of many evils. You really can't determine whether EFX or Oanda is cheaper because you're not comparing apples to apples. If Oanda would be an ECN-type portal like ECN, then a direct comparison would be possible; but the fact that Oanda is a dealing desk no matter how you slice it, their executions lend themselves to a certain degree of "manipulation" and delays. You need to take that into consideration when determining whether or not Oanda is cheaper than EFX or vice versa.
  • #6
  • Oct 6, 2007 9:09am Oct 6, 2007 9:09am
Quoting dominicanosrus
I agree with Ricardo. It's the lesser of many evils. You really can't determine whether EFX or Oanda is cheaper because you're not comparing apples to apples. If Oanda would be an ECN-type portal like ECN, then a direct comparison would be possible; but the fact that Oanda is a dealing desk no matter how you slice it, their executions lend themselves to a certain degree of "manipulation" and delays. You need to take that into consideration when determining whether or not Oanda is cheaper than EFX or vice versa.
Have you ever traded with Oanda?
What do you base your statment on regarding these "manipulations and delays" on?

I have been with Oanda for over three years now and yet to have an order "manipulated or delayed.......yes they do widen the spreads during news, but I have never experiance any lag or requote in price when I pull the trigger.

Is Oanda perfect? no .... but they beat the socks off alot of other brokers out there, and as to being a dealing desk....their system is automated, so like I said above I have never had my orders manipulated, the price I entered is the price I got.

Just my 2 pips......
Same Whore .... Different Dress
  • #7
  • Oct 6, 2007 2:46pm Oct 6, 2007 2:46pm
regardless Oanda is not an pure ndd...however this isn't necessary bad since Oanda is much more transparent than other DD.

i also dont mind them widening spreads during news, since i just dont trade when something big is coming.

I guess for now use MT4 for TA and just place orders through Oanda wil have to do. but i've been doing this with MBTrading as well and its pretty good, except the 5$/100,000 sucks. thats like how many pips on the EURUSD? but again ur right the two brokers are very different in nature, but i want to know the exact numbers....since i only trade like at the most 4 times (including entering and exit) a week.
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  • #8
  • Oct 6, 2007 7:07pm Oct 6, 2007 7:07pm
My mentor uses Oanda and has a huge account, so it is good enough for me. As a newb I find the small spreads and the lack of traditional Lots awesome. I really like being able to use a percent of my account and to set my stop losses to percentage amounts (ie I've set it to automatically risk one percent of my account).
  • #9
  • Oct 6, 2007 8:05pm Oct 6, 2007 8:05pm
Quoting johnedoe
Have you ever traded with Oanda?
What do you base your statment on regarding these "manipulations and delays" on?
No; never traded with them - but I have worked with excellent traders that have and the delays [though not frequent] are there. Other traders [that I don't know as well] have also PM'ed me and mentioned this. The financial institution [allocator] that allocates capital to our traders would never fund anyone at Oanda.

Manipulations sometimes are not that obvious to a discretionary (manual) trader. Many manual traders might feel that a fill of a few seconds is a great fill, when it is actually pretty crappy. I've come to that realization after we started experimenting with trading on institutional hubs via API. Via API you are able to monitor everything in milliseconds, so you know when you are likely getting screwed or not. Even by taking an extra half a second (500ms) to fill an order, a retail broker can make out like a bandit. While it may not seem that you are getting bad fills at a retail broker, you probably can't really know unless you have access to what's under the hood.

Quoting johnedoe
Is Oanda perfect? no .... but they beat the socks off alot of other brokers out there, and as to being a dealing desk....their system is automated, so like I said above I have never had my orders manipulated, the price I entered is the price I got.
I agree with the fact that they're much better than the retail bucket shops out there; but the fact that it is a dealing base model doesn't mean that they don't take advantage of it sometimes.
  • #10
  • Oct 6, 2007 10:48pm Oct 6, 2007 10:48pm
Quoting dominicanosrus
No; never traded with them - but I have worked with excellent traders that have and the delays [though not frequent] are there. Other traders [that I don't know as well] have also PM'ed me and mentioned this. The financial institution [allocator] that allocates capital to our traders would never fund anyone at Oanda.

Manipulations sometimes are not that obvious to a discretionary (manual) trader. Many manual traders might feel that a fill of a few seconds is a great fill, when it is actually pretty crappy. I've come to that realization after we started experimenting with trading on institutional hubs via API. Via API you are able to monitor everything in milliseconds, so you know when you are likely getting screwed or not. Even by taking an extra half a second (500ms) to fill an order, a retail broker can make out like a bandit. While it may not seem that you are getting bad fills at a retail broker, you probably can't really know unless you have access to what's under the hood.


I agree with the fact that they're much better than the retail bucket shops out there; but the fact that it is a dealing base model doesn't mean that they don't take advantage of it sometimes.


Sometimes, they take advantage of it ALL the time. Their system is all algorithm based, so the conditions are already predefined, and they will happen automtically.

I have an account with Oanda, and have had one for over 2 years. I also have a very small account with MBT. At times of volatility, it is a very interesting exercise to watch oanda's prices versus mbt's prices. And watching it on demo is useless. In addition, oanda will shade, and skew prices against your position. This is from trading a live account. If you are a swing trader/longer term, then it might not affect you a huge deal because you are shooting for high pip values. But if you are shooting for small pip values, then the price difference as movement occurs is amazing. How many times, I have seen price move 5-8 pips at mbt, and no movement on oanda, I have lost count. If the price does not retrace back to pre-movement, then oanda's price will "jump".

Despite all these shortcomings, I still recommend them for someone starting out. Their advantages over the opposition market makers is huge, total flexibility in trade size, no minimum deposit, interest on balance, good company financials etc. There is a huge list of benefits for a certain market of traders. Like it was said earlier, it is the lesser of the evils, and by a huge distance.

Regards,
K.

P.S. for the person who said their mentor has a huge account with them, I would say that their trade size is probably always greater than 1 std lot, infact probably much higher. If that is the case, then oanda would have flagged their account and their trades are probably being routed directly to the interbank market (something that can be organized if you have a large enough account). Hence no price manipulation etc.
  • #11
  • Oct 7, 2007 1:22am Oct 7, 2007 1:22am
Quoting kermut
if you are shooting for small pip values, then the price difference as movement occurs is amazing. How many times, I have seen price move 5-8 pips at mbt, and no movement on oanda, I have lost count. If the price does not retrace back to pre-movement, then oanda's price will "jump".
What's your idea of "shooting for small pip values"? In your opinion, "how low" can you go on Time frame/TP & SL with Oanda without getting in trouble because of the execution speed and "supposed" price manipulation, and without being labeled as a scalper or too short-term trader?

I don't care for scalping, news-trading or any other kind of "super fast" and compulsive trading style, but since there're at least 3 people who have "close experience" with Oanda in this thread, I would like to know where do they(Oanda) draw the line between "scalper/compulsive trader" and "day-trader".
"I say high, You say low, You say why, and I say I don't know..."
  • #12
  • Oct 7, 2007 3:24am Oct 7, 2007 3:24am
The thing with Oanda is: You get only every 5 seconds a new "tick" price from their servers. That's the reason why prices sometimes "jump". And you will always get the fill of the price at the server not the price you have at the client.

BTW: This is not a disadvantage to me! Sometime you benefit (get a better price), sometimes you don't but in the long run this is around zero. Most of the time I get the fill I see.

Limit and stop orders were almost everytime filled at the prices I've set them. The worst slippage I've ever had was around 30 pips during news. I don't trade the news but my limit order for daily trades was near the current level before the news. But that was ok to me, slippage may always occur, especially during heavy news.

Last but not least I'd recommend Oanda very strongly. It's just the fairest and best market maker I've ever seen.

Regards - Xaron
  • #13
  • Oct 7, 2007 7:55am Oct 7, 2007 7:55am
Quoting Ricardo.
What's your idea of "shooting for small pip values"? In your opinion, "how low" can you go on Time frame/TP & SL with Oanda without getting in trouble because of the execution speed and "supposed" price manipulation, and without being labeled as a scalper or too short-term trader?
These are important questions, but I don't think the answer is as easy as X amounts of pips or T time IMHO.
  • #14
  • Oct 7, 2007 8:13am Oct 7, 2007 8:13am
Quoting Xaron
The thing with Oanda is: You get only every 5 seconds a new "tick" price from their servers. That's the reason why prices sometimes "jump". And you will always get the fill of the price at the server not the price you have at the client.
If this is correct, it's pretty crappy. 1 new tick update every 5 seconds?!?!?

If you do a tick analysis on an institutional price feed, you notice that in 5 seconds you usually have many ticks. I know this because via API we are able to log all this stuff and see the ticks per second. If you're only getting access to a tick per second, this is pretty bad. I could send you a snippet of tick data in Excel for you to see what I'm talking about.
  • #15
  • Oct 8, 2007 6:53am Oct 8, 2007 6:53am
This is correct if you use their Java application but I don't see where this should be crappy. Using their API you get real ticks. I guess they do that to not overload their Java application not because to "rip off" their customers.

Oanda might not be the best market maker for scalping, but for everything above 5-second noise random trading they are pretty good. My min timeframe is 5m which I sometimes trade. Usually I trade the hourly or daily one. These are much more profitable for me. It doesn't scare me that I only get every 5 seconds a new price.

Please look at all the other "brokers". You might get every tick with MT4, but come on, you get a fill only in 3-4 seconds in a live account using a dealing desk broker...

So if you want to do the real thing, you have to choose a non dealing desk broker aka an ECN broker, but I wonder who ever really need every tick for profitable trading?

Regards - Xaron
  • #16
  • Oct 8, 2007 7:47am Oct 8, 2007 7:47am
Quoting Xaron
This is correct if you use their Java application but I don't see where this should be crappy. Using their API you get real ticks. I guess they do that to not overload their Java application not because to "rip off" their customers.
OK, Xaron; now I get you. I thought that they only provided 1 tick every 5 seconds no matter how you trade with them; but now you clarified it - all their ticks are available via API. I guess what they're doing is throttling the data. This is common across the board in this market and even some institutional platforms do it. I was told by a Currenex insider that HotSpotFxi throttles their data to 4 ticks per second. That means that they only feed 4 ticks to your desktop from their end. The reason they do this is supposedly not to overload the trader's available bandwidth. The human eye cannot even detect 4 ticks per seconds, but at the same time, you won't see the changes on the chart from ticks that are are not really getting to you. Furthermore, the broker might say, we'll the tick never got to you, but it really took place - and you'll be screwed and have to take their word for it because all brokers [no matter if they're retail bucket shops or "prestigious" institutional outfits] are greedy, sneaky pigs. If you get a fill on a tick that doesn't show up on the chart, you basically have to take their word for it - or go to the NFA, which still won't be able to prove anything.

Quoting Xaron
Please look at all the other "brokers". You might get every tick with MT4, but come on, you get a fill only in 3-4 seconds in a live account using a dealing desk broker...
I hear you brother - and I agree with you. MT4 brokers are a joke. Even when the few that are working on providing an ECN feed through MetaTrader pull it off, the freaking platform was designed by Russians to rip off retail traders, so it is still not an ideal solution.

Quoting Xaron
So if you want to do the real thing, you have to choose a non dealing desk broker aka an ECN broker, but I wonder who ever really need every tick for profitable trading?
Believe me. They need it. We have a high frequency trading algo system in Beta mode that relies on tick data. It can trade hundreds of times a day and every tick counts. There are also some manual (discretionary) scalpers that use tick charts to trade. It's true that this is beyond the scope of most traders, but it is being done. There are a lot of different ways to skin a cat - use whatever works for you.
  • #17
  • Oct 8, 2007 8:10am Oct 8, 2007 8:10am
Oh ok. Automated systems on a tick base do need tick data of course. I see. I even can imagine a successful system, but you'd need the lowest spreads and instant fills for that.

Good luck with your system!

Regards - Xaron
  • #18
  • Oct 8, 2007 8:14am Oct 8, 2007 8:14am
Quoting Xaron
The thing with Oanda is: You get only every 5 seconds a new "tick" price from their servers. That's the reason why prices sometimes "jump". And you will always get the fill of the price at the server not the price you have at the client.

BTW: This is not a disadvantage to me! Sometime you benefit (get a better price), sometimes you don't but in the long run this is around zero. Most of the time I get the fill I see.

Limit and stop orders were almost everytime filled at the prices I've set them. The worst slippage I've ever had was around 30 pips during news. I don't trade the news but my limit order for daily trades was near the current level before the news. But that was ok to me, slippage may always occur, especially during heavy news.

Last but not least I'd recommend Oanda very strongly. It's just the fairest and best market maker I've ever seen.Regards - Xaron

I second everything that is said above. It is by far the best choice out of the market makers. So what if they don't have the wiz bang ability of mt4. If you must use mt4, there is no limit to demo accounts on a number of brokers.

The only scalping they discourage is if you do it around news trading, but they have managed to conter that by the increased spreads. I don't think there is really any particular style the actually discourage.

Best choice for market maker. If you want more than they offer (which you shouldn't if you are starting out), then increase your capital and go to an ECN. But remember, if you can't be profitable with $1000, there is nothing to say you will be profitable with $10,000. Just something I read and learnt ath the school of hard knocks.

Happy trading.
  • #19
  • Oct 8, 2007 11:20am Oct 8, 2007 11:20am
Can someone explain why Oanda doesn't have trailing stops? Is there a technical reason or is it a company policy or what? I just don't get it.
  • #20
  • Oct 8, 2007 12:53pm Oct 8, 2007 12:53pm
btw, if i have a position open, lets say short, and i am deep in the money, but we move into News release time and prices go bonkers.

if i had a trailing stop (with MBT) would i be guaranteed an exit even with the news release or is it better for me to just take my profit before news release and play it safe.

also, isi t possible to modify my positions on MBT...such as setting stop loss or trailing stops....it seems with MBT u can only set these things only once when you are placing order.

what bout for Oanda ?
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