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I think Oanda FXTrade is unreliable

  • #21
  • May 5, 2010 10:08am May 5, 2010 10:08am
I'm 100% for the discussion of brokers and pros/cons/concerns. I just can't say that I share your experience with Oanda so far.

Quoting jimbil
1. They do not offer charts of a satisfactory standard, which makes it doubly hard to prove where their price was in any given moment.
Satisfactory to you is different than satisfactory to me. I don't really use their charts for entry and exit signals, so they suit me just fine. If you want to see price history including spread, check out the "Max/Min" chart type.
Quoting jimbil
2. They sell the 0.9 pips spread as some sort of mega deal but the reality is -
The reality is what? Did you mean this as a segue into point number 3?
Quoting jimbil
3. I have found i am experiencing non-beneficial slippage a hell of a lot when it comes to market orders. Slippage should work both ways - 50/50 for & against. But i only ever seem to experience loss making slippage with Oanda - coming out of a trade with less profit/more loss than i should have - based on the fact that the price i got filled at was NOT the price i clicked on.
See my comments at the end. Also, what do you mean, the price you clicked on? If you are clicking on prices that you want, are you not by definition trading on limit orders?
Quoting jimbil
4. The deal tickets text is so small, it makes it difficult to read what the price is anyway, even with a super large magnifying glass.
Really? If this is an honest problem for you, check out the built in screen magnifier.
Quoting jimbil
5. When the 2nd bubble bursts within the coming months, & we experience the 2nd wave of the financial crisis - that is much more severe than this first wave. If Oanda become bankrupt, your own personal trading funds are NOT protected, as they are NOT held in segregated accounts with another bank. You will join the back of a long queue of Creditors, looking to claim back what is yours from the Administrators. Which may well be impossible.
You are correct in your assessment of what will happen if Oanda goes belly-up, and that's the reason I will eventually move on from them.
Quoting jimbil
STAY CLEAR of this bucket shop! Thats my advice!
I recently went live using Oanda and I've been putting in orders ranging between 200,000 and 750,000 units. I've been using market orders and entering on time, not price. I've experienced very little slippage, no more than 2 pipettes (as defined by looking at the difference between what I wanted my TP/SL calculated at in pips and then looking at what was printed on the ticket, as well as the price given when a TP/SL was actually triggered), and one time I received positive slippage of a pipette in my favor.

As far as connection issues, I haven't encountered any in the past few weeks of live trading. Latency of the javaw.exe process to Oanda's servers has always been < 100ms, even during news time.

Quoting jimbil
I have concluded that in real terms, their EURUSD spread is actually closer to 2.5 -3 pips on average, when everything is taken into into account. This is under normal market conditions, & does not include news times.

I wouldnt dream of trading news with Oanda as the spreads are usually 10 pips.

Yes but you are still paying roughly a EURUSD 2.5 - 3 pip spread, sometimes 2, sometimes 1 pip, but on average i come out 1.5-2 pips worse off than i should have done.
Where are you getting 2.5-3 from? I am at my desk for 11 hours/day (London and London/US overlap) and besides news time (which you yourself said you wouldn't dream of trading with them during), when does the E/U spread go above 2? I haven't seen it break 1.5 for more than a few minutes in the last three weeks. According to this page, I'm correct for the past week (again, excluding news).
Hindsight is 20/20
  • #22
  • May 5, 2010 10:16am May 5, 2010 10:16am
Quoting cosgrove
As far as connection issues, I haven't encountered any in the past few weeks of live trading. Latency of the javaw.exe process to Oanda's servers has always been < 100ms, even during news time.

Where are you getting 2.5-3 from? I am at my desk for 11 hours/day (London and London/US overlap) and besides news time (which you yourself said you wouldn't dream of trading with them during), when does the E/U spread go above 2? I haven't seen it break 1.5 for more than a few minutes in the last three weeks. According to this...
maybe his latency < 1000ms therefore slip about 2.5-3pips.
  • #23
  • May 5, 2010 10:20am May 5, 2010 10:20am
Oanda vs. Refco:

Quoting Wikipedia
Refco has not enjoyed a clean reputation with regulators. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Futures Association took action against Refco and its units more than 100 times since the firm's founding. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was "among the most cited brokers in the business, according to data provided by the NFA."
Oanda has a pristine record with the NFA so far, right? I would imagine we would see some warning signs before they end up like Refco.

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/...T6Nt/8%3d&rn=Y

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/...IpQkOU%3d&rn=N

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/...T6Nt/8%3d&rn=N

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/...IpQkOU%3d&rn=N

All the listed principals under OANDA CORPORATION (first link) have clean records as well.
Hindsight is 20/20
  • #24
  • May 5, 2010 10:31am May 5, 2010 10:31am
Oanda staff is here ...
  • #25
  • May 5, 2010 10:47am May 5, 2010 10:47am
Quoting bugscoe
17, maybe 18? And under $1k in capital.
Sorry 17, 18 and under $1k in capital traders...
Some people ....
  • #26
  • May 5, 2010 10:54am May 5, 2010 10:54am
To be fair though, Oanda does have a clean record with the NFA. Very few brokers have that. I've used Oanda since March, live account. I had some connectivity issues on a few occassions early April, but overall I'm satisfied, so far.
  • #27
  • May 5, 2010 10:56am May 5, 2010 10:56am
Quoting futures
Sorry 17, 18 and under $1k in capital traders...
Some people ....
Anytime you'd like to offer up some hard evidence to prove your claims about Oanda, feel free.
  • #28
  • May 5, 2010 11:05am May 5, 2010 11:05am
Speaking of capital, let us compare brokers:

as of 3/10/10

Oanda:

Adjusted net capital: $168,087,844
Net capital requirement: $28,863,309
Excess net capital: $139,224,535

MB Trading since many like them:

Adjusted net capital: $24,664,975
Net capital requirement: $20,000,000
Excess net capital: $4,664,975
  • #29
  • May 5, 2010 11:24am May 5, 2010 11:24am
Quoting bugscoe
Anytime you'd like to offer up some hard evidence to prove your claims about Oanda, feel free.
Oanda have always had 'problems', forums are littered with screenshots and videos of blatant quote manipulation, disconnection 'issues' around volatile news (in fact a disconnection was almost guaranteed during NFP!), 'accidental' fat-finger 200 pip spreads on Cable, and not long back massive issues on JPY pairs, just to mention a few.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt because they have plusses but they're far from snow white.

The advertised 0.9 spread is a marketing tactic and it works extremely well......didn't we already have the same discussion this time last year?
  • #30
  • May 5, 2010 11:45am May 5, 2010 11:45am
Quoting pipmutt
instant fills up to 10m per ticket even at the most volatile illiquid times
I wish that were backed up by real-world examples/first-hand experience..
  • #31
  • May 5, 2010 11:50am May 5, 2010 11:50am
Quoting oliverpip
To be fair though, Oanda does have a clean record with the NFA.
Sure they do, there's no rule governing integrity.

Brokers like Oanda can quote what they like, fill what they like, and reverse trades they don't like (mind you that's not as easy as it was pre Jun '09).

I suppose what gets me is their constant reference to fairness and a level playing field like they're the best shop ever, heck didn't they even publish a traders charter or something?!?

We all (should) know the tricks brokers get up to, it's part of the game and we accept it or we do business elsewhere, but some shops seem to rely on their customer base being too inexperienced to notice anything's wrong....and in the majority of cases they are!
  • #32
  • May 5, 2010 11:56am May 5, 2010 11:56am
Quoting Trader KGB
I wish that were backed up by real-world examples/first-hand experience..
I've had market orders for 3m filled to close a series of open trades and not experienced any problems, and I think I remember Domino saying he's had bigger orders filled.

Don't get me wrong, Oanda has it's benefits, but they ain't squeaky clean by any means!
  • #33
  • May 5, 2010 12:08pm May 5, 2010 12:08pm
Oanda may not be snow white but traders aren't either lol. Didn't they get screwed over majorly by a couple traders exploiting executions and stuff?

But in reality anyone who is dissatisfied could try to go to a bank to see if they are interested in allowing you to trade through them. *heh* *heh*

When you are a small fish in a big ocean you have no leverage.
  • #34
  • May 5, 2010 12:19pm May 5, 2010 12:19pm
Quoting Deusomega
Oanda may not be snow white but traders aren't either lol. Didn't they get screwed over majorly by a couple traders exploiting executions and stuff?

But in reality anyone who is dissatisfied could try to go to a bank to see if they are interested in allowing you to trade through them. *heh* *heh*

When you are a small fish in a big ocean you have no leverage.
Haha, that's right, wasn't it box options? And I think another time they were getting shafted on latency big time!

You're right, we retail traders are the bottom of the barrel, banks wouldn't give us the time of day......mind you aren't RBS using Oanda's platform, Marketwatch, Marketscope, something like that, and Deutsche Bank have some deal with FXCM, maybe others will join in soon.

Imagine trading with a bank, they'd hang us out to dry just for laughs, they don't play so nice.
  • #35
  • May 5, 2010 5:10pm May 5, 2010 5:10pm
I've been using oanda for awhile now and have been pretty pleased with them. I think this whole "my broker is out to get me" thing is a bit out of hand. I have the oanda trading platform running 12 hours a day and have had 1 disconnect in the last 4 months that was on their end. Every other time it was due to my internet dropping out. Sure I occasionally get slippage but not very often, and only a pip or two tops. If your trading during very volatile periods (news events and such) it will happen. On occasion you will have a lack of liquidity and your broker can't execute orders at prices that don't exist. I'm not saying they are perfect, just saying if you are having a lot of trouble trading forex, your broker probably isn't your biggest problem.
  • #36
  • May 5, 2010 6:31pm May 5, 2010 6:31pm
I don't think Oanda's Java platform was originally designed for intra-day trading, but instead for Investor type traders; traders who hold positions longer. Compared to any of the major FX brokers out there, when it comes to trading app, Oanda's platform is lacking. The reliability issues are enough reasons to wonder if they have the backend/infrastructure to handle intra-day traders. The only reason traders option for Oanda is because their entry threshold is a lot small compared to other brokers, which makes me believe is the only reason they are still in business.
  • #37
  • May 5, 2010 9:49pm May 5, 2010 9:49pm
Quoting Jhig
I don't think Oanda's Java platform was originally designed for intra-day trading, but instead for Investor type traders; traders who hold positions longer.
I would cite the existence of options for displaying 5/10/30 second time frames, the lack of any time frames above daily, and the max history for daily charts only going back ~1.5 years as evidence to why it was NOT designed for investor type traders.

Quoting Jhig
The only reason traders option for Oanda is because their entry threshold is a lot small compared to other brokers, which makes me believe is the only reason they are still in business.
Nobody knows the actual reasons as to why Oanda is still in business, because they are not a public company. Are you saying that a firm with $137M in excess net capital is being propped up by people coming in with $100 accounts and trading 1,000-10,000 units at a time?
Hindsight is 20/20
  • #38
  • May 6, 2010 5:26am May 6, 2010 5:26am
My friend also doesn't want Oanda. He tried it before, he said that its hard to trade with their platform and that it sometimes stops (crash..?)

Shouldn't there be an international regulator or a checker to test if the brokers' services are reliable?
  • #39
  • May 6, 2010 5:54am May 6, 2010 5:54am
IMHO Oanda is more reliable than most of the MT4 bucket shops out there. I even prefer their simple platform instead of Metatrader. I don't need fancy indicators but I like features like the display of exposure, the ability to see the average price of several entries, the ability to move all targets and stops with one click and so on. I rarely have disconnect problems nor slippage.
  • #40
  • May 6, 2010 8:45am May 6, 2010 8:45am
Quoting Lisbet
Shouldn't there be an international regulator or a checker to test if the brokers' services are reliable?
Do you really need an international money-sucking commission to sit in front of an Oanda FX Trade window and monitor the connectivity?

Who regulates the regulators? Who decides what the definition of "reliable" is? Three? Four? Five 9s (99.999%)? What if the bar is set too low, and the regulator's existence is pointless? What if the bar is set needlessly too high, and it costs the broker-in-question too much money to maintain, so they jack their prices up to compensate, resulting in cost passed down to the trader for a needless service most didn't even ask for?

Sorry to sound so harsh.
Hindsight is 20/20
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