Hi All,
I would like to find out if anybody else is in the same “bad” boat as I am.
First ISP: I am with ATT since Bellsouth is gone. The problem started this year with ATT, whenever I have lightning in my area the Internet goes intermittent or dead. Spoke to them of course they deny it but I call my friends and ask if they still have internet there’s is dead or intermittent too.
As soon as the sky is clear again no problem with the connection. I can run 24+ hours without interruption if there is no lightning in the area. Clouds and rain seem not to affect the connection, just lightning. I assume it is a ATT Tower to Tower connection problem. Since they deny I can’t do much about it. Alternative cable seems to have similar problems too, according to reviews I was reading. Therefore I can just stick with ATT.
So I know trading in the afternoon is bad. I am watching the weather channel and get out of my trades as soon as I have clouds on the weather radar. Since I scalp, not a problem.
Except now, I have a Oanda issue too.
This is all happen on a LIVE account, very good possible it would not be a problem on the demo-server, since they would like to get customers. The demo platform runs on a different server then the live platform.
To the contrary of many others (not all) I like the Oanda Java platform with the single click order, it is perfect for scalping.
Except now there Java platform disappears and the message window pops up saying that it lost connection with the server, “try to reconnect”. Mind, it is at a time when there is no lightning in the area, nights and mornings.
The problem actually started 2 years ago always around news-time and it was around Christmas. They claimed they where fixing the problem at that time and it got better for a while.
Since the end of last year I would say they “tweaked” there server. Not only is the platform disappearing during news-time (besides the 10+ pips spread jump), no, now Oanda disappears at any other time during the day too.
I started to make some tests with small amounts of money (10 cents) and I don’t know if I am paranoid or not but I noticed, many times I have a trade going, the platform starts “acting” up, meaning it starts to loose connection conveniently. Lets put it this way, it happens too often to be a fluke.
I monitor at the same time a demo platform MT4 with IBFX and theirs is going nicely without interruption. As long as the trade is going in my favor the Java is only coming back spotty, not long enough to close the trade. The charts just show up to disappear in a instant again.
Once the trade on the IBFX demo shows that I would be in the negative, Oanda is back again too and without interruption.
I let the platform run for a couple hours without trading, all is fine. Make another trade and the server gets the reconnection problem. I spoke with them and of course they claim there is no problem. I also was told that I always could go and close a trade going to there mobile platform. Well, that’s not my idea of trading.
I also noticed if the news is not important it most likely does not disappear, unless I put on a trade then it may or may not disappear. In fairness, it is not always that the platform disappears, but way to frequently to be coincidental for my opinion. In short, it is time to find a more “reliable” Forex Broker.
I am trying the new 1-click platform from IBFX as a DEMO and it just works as Oanda, except it is MT4. Spread is not as good as Oanda but Oanda seems to have raised there spread too, mostly to 1.1+. Don’t know if the real thing (IBFX MT4) would have the same problem as Oanda. If anybody is using the IBFX 1-click platform LIVE (not demo) I would like to hear if it works or if there are some problems too. It would be useless to open a live account with IBFX if they “pull” the same tricks.
But that may be just me, that’s why I would like to get some feedback from people with LIVE accounts, NOT DEMO. I also opened a demo-account with MB-Trading (ECN-Broker), when I demo traded, just cents it was interesting with a 14 cents in the plus I ended up with 6 cents demo profit, rest was spread and commission. Same with a 18 dollar demo profit, ended with $8 demo profit. 
Not my “cup of tea”
Thanks to everybody and happy trading.