Another Oanda Love Story

Beginner Questions
1

This happened today on the 8:00 AM New York Time Candle (1:00 PM London ) 1H Candle. It’s always a pleasure to see Oanda’s price action. On 09/03/2014 3:00 PM candle seems to form a firm support line, I drew a support line from it on all the charts so everyone can see how every other broker respected this support line except oanda as usual. Not only are they famous to purposely widen their spreads during news releases all the way up to 30 pips in some pairs but they also like to go “stop” hunting. This is one more reason that everyone should stay away from this true bucket shop. The arrow on the chart points to the 8:00 AM Candle.






Oanda made a new low clearly breaking that support line by about 12 pips, this is not price action! This is clearly stop hunting!

2

Nice but schocking analysis!!! Have you discuss this with Oanda??

3

I don’t use time based charts on my trading, I used them here to be more correct about the time it happened, I did not trade this but I certainly noticed it right away!

I have notified them about other issues specially spreads, apparently nothing matters, they don’t seem to care about it as long as they can get away with it and as long as people continue to open accounts with them. Their excuse is always the same, that is the feed they get from the major banks in the world which is a lie.

4

Well this makes me feel really bad about all of those oanda users, and also I’m questioning my self now about my broker to.

5

Looks like OandA users need 20+ stop/entry variance to stay safe/get in.

6

In some pairs you will need a lot more than that, look at this guy complaining at the oanda’s own forum about a 60 pip spread on the AUD/NZD during a news release where he got stoped out because of it. Is this what we are suppose to call price transparency? They certainly want you to believe it. I’m currently collecting more incidents to make a video and post it on youtube and possibly complain to the CFTC about them but probably they won’t do anything about it either. This is pure price manipulation!

7

What broker are you currently using?

8

Thanks for the heads up.

9

Lol. Complaining about a Forex broker is the same as complaining about a slot machine at a casino taking your money, and then going to play at a casino down the road. They’re really one and the same.

In any case the Forex market is decentralized. Clearly you do not understand that concept.

10

Manipulating price is still illegal in the US, you can use tons of comparisons to prove that they are manipulating the price ( another words stealing money from their clients ) yet they hide themselves behind the idea of transparency! Any decent broker, even though this market is decentralized, will not play these kind of games that oanda and some others play. In regards to your last statement I’m assuming that you define decentralized as freedom to screw your client in any way possible. These kind of games don’t happen with companies like dukascopy or interactive brokers but I guess US companies can do whatever they want because if you live in the US you can’t go outside to a decent company and open up an account so basically US based companies have no competition.

11

Your observation is correct as to the games, however you’re comparing apples to oranges. Dukascopy and Interactive Brokers don’t have these problems, because they don’t see or hold your trade. Oanda is a Market Maker. One of the ways all market makers make money is taking the other side of your trade being in the US has little to do with it. Check out FXCM, except US clients but you don’t find these complaints because like Dukascopy and Interactive they offer straight through processing. Anyways just my 2 cents
Gp

12

I know that Oanda is a MM, and I know what it means but still doesn’t justify their outrageous spreads. Does MMs have the freedom to screw their clients? Apparently so! How come the CFTC doesn’t have tougher laws to enforce transparency? Presently they are doing what they please!

I don’t get what you trying to say with FXCM and US clients!

13

Hi idude,

OANDA takes great pride in providing the best overall service possible to our clients and the quality of our pricing is of paramount concern. To ensure price transparency, our pricing is fully automated and accurately reflects the real-time, risk-adjusted cost from our liquidity providers. As such, we do not engage in any form of “stop hunting”.

Spreads tend to be at their narrowest during times of lower market volatility, but as volatility increases, our liquidity providers in the interbank market widen their spreads and we are forced to pass on some of the increases in the form of wider spreads. However, when the interbank spreads return to more stable levels, we are able to similarly trim our spreads and pass on the savings to you.

Likewise, liquidity levels can change through the day in conjunction with news events, end-of-day rollover periods, and market openings and during these times of scarce liquidity, our banking partners act to limit their own risk. Accordingly, as we take on this liquidity risk, our spreads will also increase during these periods.

Keep in mind, however, that while our liquidity providers are acting to limit their own risk though actions such as reducing the size of their bids and offers, or even refusing to provide a quote, OANDA continues to take trades. You can still send trades to OANDA and we will fill them even when others may not offer a tradable price.

The candle you point to includes the movement during NFP but the chart does not appear to be the EUR/USD pair. If you can let us know what pair you’re referring to, we’d be happy to investigate this case further.

In keeping with our core principal of fairness, OANDA’s pricing and risk management systems do not see client orders or client trades until after they’ve been executed. Trades on our platform are executed automatically and settled immediately without human intervention.

​Sincerely,
Bernice, OANDA

14

It cant be during NFPS if the date he said is 09/03/14 which is the 3rd sep, NFPS was the 5th, no???

15

Yes it was on 9/5/2014, it was on the USD/JPY pair.

16

Your answer to this problem is always the same, be it by email or by phone but the fact is Oanda is the only broker that behaves like this and if indeed the problem lies withing your liquidators then Oanda might consider changing liquidators. Saying that oanda is not responsible for this behavior then we should expect similar spreads and similar bars with every other broker but the fact is, this doesn’t happen or at least it doesn’t happen to such extent as Oanda, so as far as I’m concerned Oanda has special software to manipulate the price and spreads during these times. I’ve seen complaints on your own forum of clients of yours complaining about 60 pip spreads on the AUD/NZD, are you kidding me? Whereas this spread on other brokers increases by 3 or 4 pips.

As far as that candle goes, it is from the USD/JPY chart on 9/5/2014, it’s the NYTime 8:00Am 1H candle. I have checked 3 other brokers right here on the US and everyone of them shows that candle not going through that support line or bareilly going through except yours which clearly goes through.

17

I would leave this broker if i was you, im with alpari uk not sure if they have american clients but i have found them to be very good.

18

I have my main account with another broker which uses stp/ecn tech but I still have a very small account with them which I will be closing soon. No sense to be with them and yes Alpari holds an office in the US also and we are starting to have more options when it comes to ecn brokers that we did not have a couple of years ago so these bucket shops might think twice about price manipulation.