Oanda platform

Broker Discussion Forex Brokers
21

Here’s an excellent review of Oanda from Elite Traders website that anyone coming across this thread may find useful:

[I]"Oanda seems to offer institutions and retail traders an alternative to trade Forex.
They introduced second by second interest calculation and unit size trade increments years ago before the competition. To this day the competition is trying to catch up.

Those antiquted charts were really daunting at first, but I have found them to provide 100% of what is avaialble in other platforms. Ok there is not any bells and whistles, but its all there. The web-based Java platform can be accessed from any computer with Java and you can open up multiple instances of the platform with different browsers with the same computer.

The academics that offer O and A (Olsen and Associates) are not any dummies. They have presented many tools throughout their website and have a vision to offer the very best institutional and Retail platform. They have undertaken a huge vision and have affected the Forex world with their innovations.

They do not have trailing stops or sound alerts. Their max leverage is 50:1 with a 100:1 effective maintenance margin. They have a variable spread.

You will find that the spreads are adequate for institutional trading and you retailers are getting a free ride.

If you are a new trader or an experienced trader…if you are retail or institutional…Oanda should be your choice.

Oanda offers a lifetime demo account whether you are a clinet or not. And actively introduces updates there first, then it goes into trading. Interactive Brokers should learn from this and not use the clients as guinea pigs. Funny, I know of some Currenex users that use Oanda’s free charts. Yes its true.

Oanda does not trade against you. I have always received my fills since June 2004. Never have I been slipped. Oanda hedges their aggregate one lot at a time through their software with the 8-12 banks they deal with. Yes they hedge!!!That means when you go long they go long…when you go short they go short…they are simply treading water and make the spread! Their computer automates all of this and oanda hopes you make money~!

There is a quirk in the trade ticket. You can set a bracket with the number of pips from your entry for the stop and/or the target. These are check boxes and once checked they are locked and do not statically update with the quote. So if you park your trade tickets you need to uncheck and check those boxes to update them before pulling the trigger.

Back to the charts…there is one-click trading from the scrolable charts and they offer several time frames. You can see your trade markers right on the chart and the history on the daily is one year and more extensive history is avaialable at one of the many external sites authored and actively maintaned and updated by Oanda. The quotes update every two seconds and the snapshots “stream in” without fail. The account summary updates with each two second change. And check out the exposure tab…you can one-click trade from that too! The detachable moveable screens and summaries can be moved about your multiple monitor set up by dragging and dropping. You can subscribe to the API and if you have enough Volume after the first month of fees you can get it for a discount or up to being free. The API is in the 600 buck/month range. When its slow you can click on forums from your platform and there you are signed in and “flame-ready”.

Did you know that Oanda pays around 4.8% interest on my USD cash balance at the time of this review? Also I can trade 33 pairs and recently Gold and Silver are available to trade. They have box options for you too! guess what? you can trade on weekends if you wish when the others are closed, but watch those wide spreads!

The positive and negative interest differentials for the pair you hold can be easily calculated from the menu in the platform named FXmath. There are other handy calculators there too!

You can withdraw fee-free from Oanda once a month by check here in the USA. Wire and Paypal available too.Just fill out the online form and your money is moving. Security is the best. E-Trade should learn from Oanda. You can only withdraw to the source of your deposit…If you should require more than one withdrawal the fee is only 15 bucks. I usually organize to take a once a month withdrawal. There are email confirmations and an entry in your platform under the activity tab, confirming deposits and withdrawals. You can download several years of transaction history from the platform and export them to excel if you wish.

Recently from the time of this post Oanda was the largest published Dealer/Marketmaker and all of this accomplished without advertising. Can their competitors say that?

If you can do without trailing stops and high leverage Oanda is your only choice. Online sign up is easy and fast if you follow the instructions. I do not find anything out of the ordinary with this CFTC licensed and NFA registered marketmaker. After you get your account it is just a simple phone call to the 24/6 call center or an email with a quick turnaround to turn on as many subaccounts as you wish. To transfer funds between them is a few clicks online and instaniously you moved the funds, all documented immediatley in you activity tab. Some hedgers control there margin manually this way as Oanda does not accomodate hedging with neutral margins in the same account.

Marlene [/I]

Really hard to talk them up any more than that. :slight_smile:

22

Sounds like you work for them huh? I hear what your saying there.:eek: I plan to get an account with you guys here very shortly for your micro account and the fact I hear so much good talk about oanda on this website from some of the members.

23

Sounds like you work for them huh?

I understand that you are making a joke here because,

all of this accomplished without advertising. Can their competitors say that?

Nobody holds a referral link for Oanda, everything which you hear
on the forums is from traders who are happy to promote this
broker for nothing, zilch, nowt.

Usually all the detractors are failed loser traders, who would lose
their money anywhere, even if you gave them automatic T/P when
they blink. (Or “mind reading” because they knew that the trade was going
to go that way but they pressed the wrong button, honestly.) :lmao:

24

I thought the same thing after the post…but no, I don’t work for them.

For new(er) traders, you really won’t find a better broker. The minimum account requirements other brokers advertise are to lure new accounts knowing full well they have stand a 99% chance of over trading the account into the ground within the first week. [B]That kind of thing just ticks me off since I fell for it time and time again when I was first starting out.[/B]

Finally common sense hit me in the head and I realized that as much as the account rep called me, they weren’t my friend and they could really care less about me as a person…they were merely trying to get me to deposit more funds. Those guys aren’t happy unless you have at least $2500 in total deposits so their comission on the account is worth something.

Trading is dog eat dog…plain and simple. There are no friends in this business. The founder of this website is a RARE exception in that he’s taken the time and effort to help new traders with little compensation. :slight_smile:

So, I apologize for sounding like an Oanda employee; I actually work for big brother (gov), I’m just a loyal Oanda customer for many years now…:smiley:

25

That’s probably 100% true! :rolleyes:

I’ve talked trash about other brokers afer running an account into the ground when in reality I should have been more educated on proper leverage and account management. Took me years to learn to manage my account even after having a good system to trade.

26

eSignal offers a free platform alternative to Oanda’s trading platform called, QuoteTrader.

QuoteTrader from eSignal – The future of integrated trading!

Registration is free and you can use your Oanda account through the platform.

You will need to eSignal an email after installing the software to have the Oanda API enabled for your account.

Send an email to Quote.com like so…be sure to specify FX-Game or FX-Trade:

[I][B][I][email protected]

Please enable my Oanda FX-Trade/FX-Game account for API access.

My QuoteTrader username is : username_Mudd

My Oanda FX-Trade/FX-Game username is : username_Buddha

Thanks.[/I][/B][/I]

It may take up to 24 hours to enable your account for API access.

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27

This sounds good, but is it a time-limited trial? If so, how long is it good for?

Terry

28

No time limit. Free of charge with select brokers.

It’s more or less a way for eSignal to promote their services and as the trader becomes interested in more than FX, they [I]may[/I] expand their usage of eSignal services into the options, CFD’s, stocks…etc.

29

Sorry if I came off wrong there,Your post was pretty good,if oanda needed advertising you could land that job!:)It just goes to show that people are really happy with this broker.I closed my GFT account friday and I am going to open an oanda account today.A friend at work turned me on to forex and he uses GFT so I went home and opened a demo with them. Then a few weeks went by and they wanted 2500.00 from me to open up an account, in return keep my demo.But he agreed after resistance from me to give me the demo for a 250.00 account opened with them.So that is where I stand as of now.I have a demo open with oanda ,was just never happy with the platform.but I see there are ways around that now.Thanks for the advice in the last couple posts also!!! good trading!

30

No problem…my pleasure. Besides, I didn’t actually write the Oanda review…I just happened to have it bookmarked so when I start wandering the broker homepages, I can read the review and come back to my senses! :wink:

Also, keep in mind with GFT, who is a good broker…probably the best of the small retail brokers, is that they only give you 5 or 6 basic indicators on their platform until your account balance is $2500 or more. Don’t be mislead by the demo account.

I was suprised to learn that FXsol actually had more capital funding than GFT, while Oanda has the largest of all brokers.

Keep in mind that you are trusting these guys with your money. And I don’t mean just while in a trade…but all the time; even when not trading! That capital funding, I believe, plays a huge part in the current and futrue stability of the brokerage. When your account exceeds $100,000, will you still be comfortable with them holding your funds? Other than Oanda, I would have a hard time with MOST other brokers to say “yes”.

While no broker is perfect, I prefer stability over perfect execution, any day.

Here’s an excerpt from Oanda’s email updates:

[I]OANDA received a $100 million investment from a consortium that includes New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Legg Mason, Cascade Investments LLC, and T. Rowe Price. This is a vote of confidence in OANDA’s business model that we will continue to pursue. There will be NO changes in our commitment to tight spreads, the best possible quality of execution and a consistent, high level of customer support. The $100M will go directly to OANDA’s balance sheet, since this will accelerate corporate and institutional client acquisition.

OANDA FXTrade executes over [B]1.5 million trades in a single day[/B]. An exceptional day, no doubt. But no other market maker has ever executed that many trades in one day. We conservatively believe that at this time OANDA FXTrade engines execute over one fifth of the world’s spot forex trades. So far, we have executed over 280 million transactions!

OANDA doubled its staff over the last 12 months to serve you better, to enhance our existing services, and to develop new services, products and tools. [/I]

31

Yeah I just opened my account today.I sent them ID and will wait for them to contact me to fund my account.With GFT I had an account open with them and like you said,the indicators were’nt there I had to have 2,500 opened up to get all the indicators.

32

That’s great. Thanks for the info. I’ll check it out.

Terry

33

I’ve traded with a few retail fx brokers, and my experience has been by far the best with Oanda :slight_smile:

34

I’ve been reading all these good things about OANDA but it’s not working for me. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Here is my problem: I have a demo account with them and notice that not all the menu items on their interface work. For instance, under the “Account” menu, I notice that the “Buy or Sell” option works. However, the “Change Leverage” item under that menu does nothing. I get the same non-responsive menu items on most of the other menu items. The same applies to the icons in the left panel (i.e. Analysis, FXNews). The only icon on the left that works is the Buy/Sell. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

35

You need to allow pop-ups from the Oanda site, your
pop-up blocker is stopping the pages opening.

Maybe when the site tried initially to pop-up the pages
you denied this action, therefore you need to reverse
this decision.

36

Also, if you’re using an internet browser other than Internet Explorer, that could cause the same issue.

I had Firefox installed for a while and it would work…and then not work.

You can get rid of those buttons on the left side panel under TOOLS>USER PREFERENCES>MISC>SHOW ACTION BUTTONS.

I’ve never cared much for those and they just take up real estate if your not using them at least occasionally. :rolleyes:

37

Thanks Daydreamer. That should’ve been the first thing I checked, considering I work in the IT field and know my browser settings. I feel soo stupid now. Leave it to someone else to point out the obvious. :rolleyes:

Thanks again. Can’t believe I missed that one.

38

Hey, guys, do you know what’s volume and how to calculate it overall and specifically in MT4?
UPDATE: just calculated: currency’s price divided by your free margin.

39

I love oanda’s platform. I’ve tried a few others and they aren’t nearly as transparent. Their charting might be lacking but I think other than that they have the very best out there. Quick question:
"Oanda does not trade against you. I have always received my fills since June 2004. Never have I been slipped. Oanda hedges their aggregate one lot at a time through their software with the 8-12 banks they deal with. Yes they hedge!!!That means when you go long they go long…when you go short they go short…they are simply treading water and make the spread! Their computer automates all of this and oanda hopes you make money~! "
Can anyone here confirm this statement? Not that I don’t believe you Muddbuddha, I’d just like to get the source.

40

I’ve tried several brokers and as others here have stated, they are the best. The charting has improved and they don’t bother you with emails or sales pitches. They do there job and let traders be traders.