In the image above, there are several examples where the opening price of a candle is quite different than the closing price of the previous candle. The yellow arrow shows the largest of such jumps. In theory, the top of this green candle and the top of the preceding red candle should be at exactly, or almost exactly the same level.
I think this can be explained by a slow tick data stream coming in from the broker. I notice sometimes 10 or 20 seconds pass between ticks. After waiting 10 or 20 seconds a spatter of ticks come in, and I see big jumps in prices.
I noticed this with my Oanda demo account, but I don’t notice it with my Think Forex demo account.
So my thoughts are that the huge gaps are caused by slow data coming in from a broker. And I conclude that Oanda is really slow, and this adds an unreasonable amount of risk to trading, especially short term trading.
It is, but Oanda MT4 is atrocious at times, I trade with Oanda on their FxTrade, but I use Metatrader for charting, I signed up for the demo version and never bothered getting round to the live version, so the Live might be better.
You are absolutely right, Master Tang. I’m glad you pointed that out.
But let’s pretend I didn’t put that yellow arrow right on the weekend there, at look at the other price jumps on the screen shot above. For example, the next bar. Or the jump right after the last red bar between 13:40 and 13:35
Below is another example. This is from last week. The 4:05 bar closes at 76.102, and the next bar opens 33 pips higher at 76.135.
I’m wondering if big jumps like that are common with other MT4 brokers, of if it’s just that Oanda is slow.
If the market environment changes rapidly, for example some unexpected news event, then the spread widens and the candle can overlap with others.
Maybe some food for thought, it can be an explanation for gaps and some candle openings.
After reading your replies, I’m concluding that the price jumps are due to slow tick data feeding from Oanda to MT4. I think some jumps can be attributed to rapid price movements in the market, but it seems to happen much too often with Oanda on MT4 for that to be the main reason. Although, I would need more experience with MT4 on other brokers to confirm that.
Sounds like their FXTrade platform is much better though, so I’ll try that out a bit.
