Oanda, now I understand

Trading Discussion
1

…why a narrow spread isn’t all that matters.

I have tested Oanda over the last couple of days and now understand the criticism regarding the slow execution. Sometimes it is immediate but half of the time it takes several seconds which is useless for scalping.

I have also been very disapointed to find out that Oanda starts it’s day in the middle of the Asian session which means the Fibo pivot point and lines of support/resistance are also useless. When a broker uses NY close for end of day I find price adheres to these lines of support/resistance in the same way it does to round numbers so they are invaluable.

Just some feedback, now I shall look for a new broker.

2

Are you using MT4 or FXTrade??

In FXTrade the execution time is one of the fastest in the whole retail industry

Well unless you are a pure PA trader using japanese candlesticks or bar charts, the start of the day might be a small issue but that has NOTHING to do with support/resistance levels… those levels do not care about day’s open or close… the same goes for fibo trading…

3

Sorry, should have said MT4.

I work with Fibo Pivot, support and resistance lines every day (not referring to the retracement tool here) and they are very important areas for scalping, hourly trades and longer. The first chart shows price bouncing at the fibo pivot point (blue line) - this is on the Pepperstone MT4 day ending at NY close. The second chart is Oanda where the Fibo Pivot point has been drawn by way a trading day that starts several hours later. The bounce happened in ‘space’ on this chart, the reason being hidden.

The resistance and support lines also adhere strongly to price, less so with the Oanda chart.


oanda_pivot.png617×517 12.1 KB

4

I’ve never been with Oanda, but all I have heard is negative reviews.

The two main points of concern that keep arising time and time again are…

  1. Spread Increasing to over-inflated amounts during news / low liquidity… (far more so than other mainstream brokers)

  2. Speed of Execution being rather sloppy, however, this is clearly not a consistent issue, and can happen with all brokers. But…there is obviously a given line in the sand when you say to yourself “this is getting beyond ridiculous”.

5

I would say 10-20 % of all trades are sloppy with Oanda, taking 3 seconds or more to execute and up to 10 seconds. Gomarkets by comparison are very swift and far more consistent.

6

I trade with Oanda.

  1. Yes the spread increases with news around 10 pips (E/U) during high impact news, but most of the time is 0.9 to 1.2, so if you are a scalper you have to stay away from news.

  2. The execution in MT4 is really really bad, but in FXTrade is blazing fast, so you can chart in MT4 and trade in FXTrade.

7

I have had no problems with execution with Oanda, been using it for 1 year

8

As the saying goes: Only a poor craftsman blames his tools.

9

I blame the poor craftsman who made the tools…

10

Oanda is a quality broker, through and through. I haven’t had any issues since first using them and quite frankly I can’t understand how one can expect all brokers’ feeds to be identical.
Oanda for life as far as I’m concerned. Did you see their $10,000 giveaway for the 1 billionth trade executed on their platform :smiley:

11

We can’t expect all feeds to be the same, we are simply stating that Oanda has poor feeds compared to many other brokers. This matters.

12

Agreed. I like Oanda myself, but there are some differences in terms of execution between brokers. Some of that depends on the platforms being used and how well they work with your broker – some combinations seem to be better than others. I Oanda, overall, does compare well with some of the other brokers I use such as MB Trading and FXCM.