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OANDA Discussion

  • #821
  • Jun 7, 2009 6:43pm Jun 7, 2009 6:43pm
Quoting Dark1
Does anyone trade with Oanda? Are they any good?

Thanks

Had no problems with OANDA except...
They have not gotten with the Metatrader program. If they are able to some how traslate their trading environment, flexibility of cost per Pip onto a MetaTrader Facility, they would in al likely hodd be the most used Broker.

The mark of a good broker is one who allow you to determine your own cost of trading and their proprietary platform does that.

Butt Metatrader and FAP, EA's etc are the future. A word to the wise...
  • #822
  • Jun 7, 2009 10:37pm Jun 7, 2009 10:37pm
Quoting pathumracled
Had no problems with OANDA except...
They have not gotten with the Metatrader program.
And I pray they'll actually never do this! MT4 is just another tool to pull money out of the clients...
  • #823
  • Jun 8, 2009 12:40am Jun 8, 2009 12:40am
Quoting Xaron
And I pray they'll actually never do this! MT4 is just another tool to pull money out of the clients...
and why is that?
freedom
  • #824
  • Jun 8, 2009 1:07am Jun 8, 2009 1:07am
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=70582
  • #825
  • Jun 8, 2009 1:58am Jun 8, 2009 1:58am
Quoting Xaron
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=70582

wow... thanks for showing me this.
freedom
  • #826
  • Jun 8, 2009 4:53am Jun 8, 2009 4:53am
Quoting billflet
I really don't know what your point is. If I open and close a position instantaneously, without any change in price, then I lose the amount of the spread and that's that. It doesn't matter what the quote is.

Are you saying that to go long I pay a higher price than with another broker?
If so, it comes out in the wash when I sell.


I'd like you to explain where I paid 5 pips on the round turn. Just saying "think quotes" proves nothing.
I'm not trying to 'prove' anything because there's nothing to prove, I thought it's common knowledge how bucketshops quote in relation to the underlying market and their book but evidently not, that's why I was attempting to promote some lateral thinking from you guys, you know friendly conversation, debate, thought.....

I tried to add a bit of humour but it seems like you're all angy about something, not to worry.

  • #827
  • Jun 8, 2009 5:21am Jun 8, 2009 5:21am
Quoting pipmutt
I'm not trying to 'prove' anything because there's nothing to prove, I thought it's common knowledge how bucketshops quote in relation to the underlying market and their book but evidently not, that's why I was attempting to promote some lateral thinking from you guys, you know friendly conversation, debate, thought.....
I understand what you mean but wouldn't this give an arbitrage opportunity?
  • #828
  • Jun 8, 2009 6:07am Jun 8, 2009 6:07am
Quoting Xaron
I understand what you mean but wouldn't this give an arbitrage opportunity?
Now we're cookin'

Yes, and it frequently does, although Oanda's algos are pretty efficient at spotting latency exploiters unfortunately (or fortunately if you've got money with them and want them to remain solvent!), don't forget it's their game. A few pips slippage on a trade is nothing to the average trader but it kills any advantage a platform arbitrageur has.

I think there's a limited amount of beneficial information or trading advantage which can be gained from analysing the disparities especially as Oanda openly publish their overall client positioning, the point I was making was that advetised spreads are nothing more than a marketing exercise, the true transaction costs are hidden and aren't simply the spread displayed on the platform. Don't get me wrong they're still competitive, other shops probably use similar tactics.

As you know yourself, and just going by some of the replies here, an awful lot of traders seem to have tunnel vision and just look at spread.

If I remember correctly there was a discussion about it over on the Oanda forums in which Michael Stumm participated, and although understandibly he never actually divulged their business model he didn't deny it either.

By the way are you the same Xaron who runs the fxmanager site (am I allowed to ask that here?)
  • #829
  • Jun 8, 2009 6:43am Jun 8, 2009 6:43am
Thanks for your thoughts!

Quoting pipmutt
By the way are you the same Xaron who runs the fxmanager site (am I allowed to ask that here?)
Yes, that's me.
  • #830
  • Jun 8, 2009 6:56am Jun 8, 2009 6:56am
Quoting Xaron

Yes, that's me.
Good job, and some great returns from your trading, I see you hit a century on one of your accounts, impressive stuff
  • #831
  • Jun 8, 2009 7:29am Jun 8, 2009 7:29am
Thanks. I've removed my own accounts from the list for some while now because it might be a kind of conflict of interest... But nevertheless I've learned a lot in the past years and made a lot of (more often not that nice) experiences...
  • #832
  • Jun 8, 2009 10:44am Jun 8, 2009 10:44am
Pipmutt,

I understand what you're saying. Someone was trying to sell a news method exploiting Oanda's latency a few years ago, which in theory was great but in reality didn't work.
I guess my point is this: Because sometimes we're entering and sometimes exiting, and sometimes we're long and sometimes short, and sometimes taking a profit and sometimes a loss, this disparity between the quoted price and actual market price should come out in the wash. Maybe not for the broker who will skew prices according to demand. But for the individual trader who is all over the place, buying and selling, the disparity should be rather insignificant over time. One trade may be on the side of the brokers goals and the next may not. Unless you subscribe to Pinchapip's notion that each trader is assigned an applet on their individual platform that will skew prices counter to the way each trader trades. In my opinion he was really reaching.
And my next point is since all brokers probably have their own quoting model, none of which is geared to benefit us (as per Xaron's reference to the MT4 plug in), doesn't it make since to go with the broker with the lowest posted spread, provided they have a reputation for quick execution and minimal slippage?
  • #833
  • Jun 8, 2009 12:44pm Jun 8, 2009 12:44pm
Pipmutt is simply and completely totally wrong.

E/U spread on Oanda is very tight, often reaching .9 pips. This 5 pip spread thing is pure and utter nonsense.

There are risks to working with Oanda, absolutely, the biggest risk is stop hunting. I have seen spikes on Oanda graphs that do not show up anywhere else .. they look very very artificial. This is probably why they keep their spread frequently so tight.

Those spike prices probably don't even always trigger limit orders. That kind of spiking is a real risk.

I am also suspicious of their slippage and wonder how fair it is - does it go both ways?

This "think quotes" is pure nonsense. There is nothing there. Oanda can not quote prices for buy/sell outside of the true market because people would just scalp the hell out of them.
  • #834
  • Jun 8, 2009 12:49pm Jun 8, 2009 12:49pm
Quoting billflet
I guess my point is this: Because sometimes we're entering and sometimes exiting, and sometimes we're long and sometimes short, and sometimes taking a profit and sometimes a loss, this disparity between the quoted price and actual market price should come out in the wash. Maybe not for the broker who will skew prices according to demand. But for the individual trader who is all over the place, buying and selling, the disparity should be rather insignificant over time. One trade may be on the side of the brokers goals and the next may not. Unless...
'Pinchapip', lol, where do people think up these names! I wouldn't subscribe to that way of thinking either, individual pricing sounds a bit too far fetched and blatant somehow, and so easily detectable.

I see what you're saying about things levelling out in the long run, but as far as I've managed to find out this is partially driven by broker directional bias as well as their book so it would disadvantage a winning trade every time (providing the broker predicted direction correctly, more algorithms!), that together with suppressing or 'smoothing' quotes to suit their book and market volatility puts the trader at even more of a disadvantage (or less of an advantage depending on which way you look at it). The original .9 pip spread as seen on the platform now bears little resemblance to the true costs. I believe these are extremely complex algorithms which involve simultaneous 'adjustment' across a number of different pairs in different directions, I couldn't even begin to understand how it's optimized, some clever guys write that stuff! Even if I was given a blueprint I probably still wouldn't be able to follow it, lol.

Quoting billflet
And my next point is since all brokers probably have their own quoting model, none of which is geared to benefit us (as per Xaron's reference to the MT4 plug in), doesn't it make since to go with the broker with the lowest posted spread, provided they have a reputation for quick execution and minimal slippage?
Absolutely I agree, if they're all playing the same game (which it's probable they are) then you may as well pick one with the narrowest spreads if everything else is equal. I have nothing against Oanda, in fact I'd quite happily recommend them to anyone looking to trade retail with a bucketshop (I don't mean 'bucketshop' in a derogatory sense by the way), they're a decent shop. But at the end of the day that's what they are, a bucketshop, as opposed to an ECN where price feed is comparatively clean and these tricks less likely to occur. In my opinion trading is challenging enough without having to try and outsmart the broker every day or be put at an unnecessary disadvantage.

This all started when my mate blazespinnaker came out with "I do trade on a pure ECN. Though you can't beat the spread on some of the bucketshops.. (ie, Oanda)" in this post. I replied saying Oanda are just about the most expensive way to trade due to the hidden transaction costs, to which he later replied "am I the only one who's going to explain what an idiotic statement this is?", here. Red rag to a bull and the rest is history

No offence meant to you by the way, you seem to know what you're doing, you'll have to ignore my sense of humor but I have an excuse, I'm British!
  • #835
  • Jun 8, 2009 1:10pm Jun 8, 2009 1:10pm
Quoting Xaron
Thanks. I've removed my own accounts from the list for some while now because it might be a kind of conflict of interest... But nevertheless I've learned a lot in the past years and made a lot of (more often not that nice) experiences...
Oh right, I've just seen! Mind you, being top of your own list doesn't go down too well I imagine

Go undercover and don't tell anyone, lol
  • #836
  • Jun 8, 2009 8:08pm Jun 8, 2009 8:08pm
Quoting blazespinnaker

I am also suspicious of their slippage and wonder how fair it is - does it go both ways?
It does. In the same extent for both.
  • #837
  • Jun 8, 2009 10:19pm Jun 8, 2009 10:19pm
I'd like to think so but they have strange price charts at time.

Doblece, explain something to me, do you think Oanda has a 5 pip EUR/USD spread? Even factoring in so called 'hidden costs' .. whatever that means.
  • #838
  • Jun 8, 2009 10:28pm Jun 8, 2009 10:28pm
Quoting blazespinnaker
I'd like to think so but they have strange price charts at time.

Doblece, explain something to me, do you think Oanda has a 5 pip EUR/USD spread? Even factoring in so called 'hidden costs' .. whatever that means.
A +5 -5 spread is possible given the usual potential slippage... though I usually get the official spread (that is, between 2.5 and 0.8 in EURUSD).

I think however that when Pipmutt mentions "the quotes" maybe he's referring to the difference those might have with other price feeds?

I close trades mostly manually and get more positive or neutral slippage than negative (between 1 and 5 pips in normal conditions).
  • #839
  • Jun 8, 2009 10:50pm Jun 8, 2009 10:50pm
Quoting doblece
A +5 -5 spread is possible given the usual potential slippage... though I usually get the official spread (that is, between 2.5 and 0.8 in EURUSD).

I think however that when Pipmutt mentions "the quotes" maybe he's referring to the difference those might have with other price feeds?

I close trades mostly manually and get more positive or neutral slippage than negative (between 1 and 5 pips in normal conditions).
Yes, I get a lot of positive slippage as well as I frequently close trades when momentum is in my favor. Measuring whether it's generally fair seems like a rather challenging mathematical task, however.

I generally constrain my trading on Oanda to times when I get optimal spread. I think Oanda has a web page listing those times. If I start getting slipped I usually stop trading as it generally seems to be caused by system slow downs .. and wait until the next day when the system stops slipping.

I'm pretty surprised people aren't rising up against this 5 pip spread stuff. That's totally not my experience at all on Oanda. In fact, they have hugely competitive spreads that are only beat out by the high volume ECN trading systems.
  • #840
  • Jun 8, 2009 11:37pm Jun 8, 2009 11:37pm
Quoting blazespinnaker

Even factoring in so called 'hidden costs' .. whatever that means.

I'm pretty surprised people aren't rising up against this 5 pip spread stuff.
It could be because most people are capable of a bit of lateral thinking and have enough common sense to know when they don't know something so they go and research it rather than making a complete arse of themselves in public. No.....wait.....scrub that....I forgot this is a retail forex trading forum, anything goes!

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question and I'm not sufficiently interested to research the subject as it doesn't affect my trading.



__________________
blazespinnaker: "I do trade on a pure ECN. Though you can't beat the spread on some of the bucketshops."
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