OANDA Discussion

I believe you. Since Oanda is a market maker, their client trades wouldn't be passed out to the market anyways. I would suspect any client on the right side of the SNB trade would've been stopped out by a massive spread increase (if they had any stop exit orders). Oanda would make a massive profit (aka "killing") and also get to do good PR of "forgiving" negative client balances.

Ever heard of Triple Witch?

'Triple Witch' induces volatility. It does not affect (stock) spreads. (Stock) spreads even stay fixed around volatility due to company news.

Yet, without fail, FX spreads skyrocket at Oanda.

I'm beginning to suspect Oanda has a lot of paid shrills in this forum. On the Oanda PR payroll I'd imagine.

It should be *ILLEGAL* for a broker to be a Market Maker.

How can client interests be foremost when the broker has the other side of the trade?

In my opinion, a broker that is a market maker is akin to a thief being a banker.

Oanda is so naughty they even ignore the Slippage-Parameter on OrderSend() in MT4.

I once had a XAUUSD breakout with a stoploss of 4 USD and a slippage of 3 USD nearly doubling my risk.
Max allowed slippage of the EA were 0.10 USD at the time of the market execution.

I opened a complaint with no avail.
They said it was a technical restriction of MT4 that the slippage parameter was not honored properly.

Stay away from them if you love your money or don't do any breakout trading with them.

You want me to sue you, Sir?

What does this mean? I`m only aware of the latin expression q.e.d., i.e. quod erat demonstrandum.

I cant see this in their history.

You can .. but first explain why 'Triple Witching' should affect forex spreads at Oanda. 'Triple Witching' should affect volatility, not spreads.

Can you juxtapose Oanda spreads at the time in question with spreads at an ECN broker to justify your 'Triple Witching' defense?

Their "history" is inaccurate. Look at post # 4236 and 4238 on page 212 for the proof.

Its a Friday, having concluded another week of good trades. I read the vitriol in this thread so thought I would throw my hand in, realising I am likely to get bleated at but there you are...



Pay attention, this isn't hard to grasp: I am aware of a HUGE, high street (retail) bank in the UK who go 'to market' less than 15% of the time to fill their days FX orders. Yes, their traders are simply smart enough to have enough positions at enough prices, to satisfy the several BILLIONS of pounds of FX deals they do each day. Nobody has ever accused them of being a market maker, yet by the pandemonium in this thread, the mere mention that this is possible leaves most frothing at the mouth.

Enter a broker, who already knows that statistically 90% of you/us will go broke by futzing around in a market we are ill-euipped to operate in, and quite likely to miscalculate 9 out of 10 times. His price is published. He provides a feed. You simply have to decide where you want to get in and out. Everything is completely transparent and if it isn't (you get a price that didn't appear on their chart/feeds) you are absolutely entitled to contest it and to my knowledge I have yet to hear of a broker refusing to pay restitution for an incorrect price. Not once.

Now I ask you: Why on earth are you all so unhappy when the price you see quite literally is EXACTLY what you are provided, and if it isn't you are given a freebie, yet you are unhappy that this should happen?? I say well bloody done to them! For the privilege of taking your money, they need to put up the most ludicrous 'bonds' of tens of millions of pounds and face some of the most onerous and restrictive regulations that exist. If their model simply avoids having to physically go to market when they are audited independently and their liquidity providers price is public, why is this a problem? If I buy gold when it was cheap and now slowly sell it off at a profit because I was smart enough to get in at the right price, why is this suddenly considered extortionate when our brokers 'might' do it?

The level of paranoia and deception in here is positively delightful! I have been trading for a long while and if my broker's price is too far off the price I see on my chart, I simply find one who is tighter. I enter, I close, I bank. If the funds hit my account directly from my broker (who are already charging me a small fee to handle my transaction in the form of a spread) then why do I care where the money comes from? I made a good trade.

Ironically, in the decades that these 'bucket shops/market makers' have been around, I might suspect that by now, with all this regulatory oversight that some disgruntled ex-employee would have spilt the beans, yet all we have is the mutterings and groaning in places like this. If you are able to find me an example where your trade where price went down at your broker yet up on your chart, I would love to see it? And I don't mean a futures contract or a CFD (which I can accept price is a little more 'variable'). I have personally seen prices vary wildly from broker to broker during all manner of market conditions, your job is to find one who matches what you see on your screen with your account most accurately.

Until then, if the broker is insightful and capitalised enough to manage your trade within the published prices and within the law, then I say power to them for taking your money since we know that 9/10 of us will lose anyway.

Sounds like a great business!

What upsets me about Oanda is the ridiculous widening of the spread. I have filed a complaint with NFA. Let's see what comes out of it. (Yes, I should've filed a complaint much earlier, but I was naive).

In investigating their spread increases, I stumbled across the inaccuracies that they publish in their spread history on their website. Their 1 second spread widening is filtered out. Folks looking at their spread charts on their website will be deceived.

That's funny you mention that as I was thinking about this yesterday.
There are so many regulated brokers in the world that are much better options than what we have here. If the regulators would like to demonstrate they really do have our best interest in mind:

1. Every broker charges a commission and provides raw interbank spreads
2. Increase leverage so we do not have to put as much money with broker. Right now, I can hold a standard lot of USDJPY for approx. $200 in margin with my broker, in the States, THE SAME EXACT TRADE requires $3,000+
3. Require segregation of client money and/or provide insurance on our funds. EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD does this
4. Allow hedging (not so important) and remove FIFO (very important and ridiculous that it even exists)

Unless these things are done, more and more traders will be moving offshore and trading with unregulated brokers. There are some really great brokers and as we see over and over regulation isn't doing us a bit of good here anyway. I trust my unregulated broker and I don't trust ANY US broker.

And before I go...the comments on spreads are borderline certifiable:
Two screen grabs folks. Taken from an INSTITUTIONAL account (in other words you need to be licensed to trade it) showing the widening of spreads during NFP.

Anyone who can 1) Stays in a trade through big news events and 2) Chooses to stick them out anyway with stops narrower than the madness we see during big news, deserves to lose their money.

If for a few seconds a week it is IMPOSSIBLE to fix a price, and spreads widen, why the HELL should we demand to be filled in at guaranteed levels knowing full well price is about to go bananas?? The answer is simple. Close your trade before news. Nothing to complain about.




We cannot complain when this information is freely available.

EDIT: This is NOT one of the brokers named anywhere in these forums, yet as a registered/pro trader I face it too, along with my colleagues. Just one reason none of us trade through big news.
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Thank you HedgePiglet for the screen shots. Your advice of closing open positions to avoid such spread increases prior to news is sound.

I don't have an institutional account. From my experience, I'd say Oanda probably inflates the interbank spread by 2-3 times around such news. Previous posts in this thread mention that they used to do this via manual intervention (which caused inordinate spreads due to fat finger mistakes at their end) but they're now automated. I don't know the inside workings. What I do know is that their website states their spread in GBP/NZD on Feb 12 @ 8:30 am was 10.5 pips (Pls see post # 4238 for the screenshot). That is absolutely false.

One question I do have (not related to Oanda) is how do stock market brokers maintain fixed spreads around volatility? Yet fx spreads widen so much. In your example above, how do US Non-Farm Payrolls widen the GBP/NZD spread by a factor of 20?

Yes, I'm upset because such spread increases have hit my way-wide trend following stops one times too many (and in some cases both my entry and exit stops). I will echo your advice of "close your trade before news" and "not trade around news" to all Oanda FX traders as it is sound and wise.

The bottom line is this..... a market maker makes the price, it is not a raw non manipulated feed. Therefore, at news or any other time they wish, they can widen spreads to whatever they wish. I only trade DMA/ECN and while spreads do vary, I never see anything close to the widening of Oanda, Forex.com, FXCM (who claim to be NDD). Basically any broker "regulated" by NFA/CFTC.

Profit Daily: Thank you for taking the time to warn folks. They need to understand the difference between DMA/ECN and market makers. I wish I had been better informed earlier.

Hi herenow0,

You're welcome though this topic is like trying to describe the view down a valley while looking through a drinking straw.

The fact that spreads widen during news/volatility/low volume is absolutely market driven and normal. Imagine there are only 100 apples in the market and 1,000 buyers. Not only does price rise, but the 'dealer' (broker) WILL increase their fee as securing apples in those conditions is harder. Simplistic but true.

Your question about stocks is a different product, where price is fixed and published, compared to a currency which may literally be worth more in India than in Turkey. The price is aggregated hence the opportunity for spreads.

I'm constantly surprised (not by your example) by how often common sense is absent in understanding how each party profits through trading. It's not as cloak and dagger as one thinks.




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Youre almost right. They actually do not make the price. They offer as competitive as possible a price/value for an instrument and the decision to accept their price is yours and yours alone. I absolutely advocate shopping around and speaking with your broker.

I do however disagree that price is somehow manipulated to their ends. Spreads widen, liquidity thins and demand rises and falls, the broker needs to be one step ahead where price is heading to remain relevant/competitive and if they start to 'slip' they have little more option than to make the conditions more 'expensive'. That's business.

I will say this, and I have no fear of being name-called for it but OANDA in the retail context have often impressed me with their pricing and costs. They're certainly 'better' than plenty others if you don't have £100,000 to kick off with.

I wish you worked at the NFA.

On a related note, I would vote for you if you ran for President.