Oanda versus FXCM

Any comments or experiences please share. I don't see any Oanda reviews on this site. Looking for good USA broker.
Thanks

Hi John,

Seeing has no one else has responded to you so far, I just wanted to make a quick reply to say that I'm FXCM's representative here on Myfxbook, and I'm available to answer any questions you have about our services. 😄

Two completely different brokers. Depending on your style of trading, you may choose either one based on the followings. Now, this is just my personal opinion/experience/recommendation.

How they make their profits:
----------------------------------

Oanda is a Market Maker who makes their profit on the spread. Their average spread is around 1.3 pips.
FXCM on the other hand is a STP broker with tight spreads, who makes their profit on commissions charged on each trade.


Odd things I noticed during the news time when the price spikes:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oanda seems to halt trading for a few minutes even though charts are being updated real time. When you use MT4 auto trading it will NOT respond to ticks(maybe no tick to MT4) for a while. This can potentially create problems if your MT4 app uses soft stops. you will lose more than you wish for because of it.

FXCM's prices somehow lag on ticks a few minutes behind. Sometimes I found there were 30 pips differences between the two. If you plan to do a copy trade and you are the receiving end from the sender of one of those brokers that have different pricing, you are in a big trouble. However, if you are a scalper and run MT4 app directly, or a manual trader, this broker may be advantageous.

ge

I forgot to mention that I trade mostly on EUR/USD.

Dear John,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ray Chang, a Relationship Manager at OANDA.

I have noticed your post on myfxbook and would like to have an opportunity to speak with you in regards to your interest in OANDA. I was wondering if you can advise if there is a better time/date for me to contact you by phone and introduce OANDA to you in person? You may also contact me anytime from 10am-7pm(EST), Monday to Friday, through the North America toll free number below at your earliest convenience.

Thank you for your kind attention and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,

Ray Chang
Relationship Manager
+1-877-626-3239 ext. #111023
[email protected]

gatoreyefx posted:
How they make their profits:
----------------------------------

Oanda is a Market Maker who makes their profit on the spread. Their average spread is around 1.3 pips.
FXCM on the other hand is a STP broker with tight spreads, who makes their profit on commissions charged on each trade.
ge

While this is true, this is not the entire picture. Oanda, being a market maker, makes profits on clients' losses, not just the spread. FXCM makes profits on any spread markup that they do (if any) as well as their relatively high commissions.

@gatoreyefx

I doubt your 'observations' are accurate. I trade Oanda both with API and MT and it's been a very long time since I've had any interruptions on news.

And I doubt FXCM is lagging on prices, they won't last long if they did. What you're seeing is most likely spread differences. Oanda can go very wide on news.

@moneycoder

There's been a lot of complaints about O's new spread engine, and FXCM is definitely cheaper. For me the trade sizes at O clenches it, I can compound much faster on O.

Frustrations are limitations on trade volumes, wide spreads, and deliberate delays written into closing trades, 1 second between closing different pairs, takes 30 seconds or more to close out 30 pairs which is just to slow. And that's still faster than MT.

The clever thing to do would be to use both. See which one works best for you.

O you have to be a bit careful with, they've managed to piss off their entire client base and they've burned through $100 000 000 in the last two years with nothing to show for it. Their finances continue to slide, not so sure about FXCM. You'll have to look them up.

Here's the link for O.

https://www.nfa.futures.org/BasicNet/FCM_ncap.aspx?entityId=tDw0VT6Nt%2f8%3d

that was a good question. glad you asked it, for it led me to find that FXCM has ' Mirror Trader ' which we were not aware of before you asked. personally looking forward to getting to know this service because it looks very interesting. (i am a retail trader and not an employee of FXCM)

jasonrogers posted:
Hi John,

Seeing has no one else has responded to you so far, I just wanted to make a quick reply to say that I'm FXCM's representative here on Myfxbook, and I'm available to answer any questions you have about our services. 😄

Hi Jason,

I wanted to start up a demo account with a beginning balance of about $15,0000. This figure is more realistic for me rather than the normal $50,0000 starting balance for demo accounts that FXCM has, I tried to call and chat with FXCM's support people but the most they could have done for me was give me a demo account with a $5,000 starting balance. Is there anything that you can do?

Thanks ge,
Great info. News times and high volatility is really the best time to see what a broker is really capable of. Things can seem equal between brokers during normal trading, but when the pressure is on, that's when the difference is seen. I noticed that with MBtrading, they seemed fine, until the market was juiced, then they fell apart.

If I'm understanding your personal experience correctly it sounds like one broker delayed trading and the other had lagging data. Do you know if the FXCM trades were still correctly made. In other words, do you feel the report of the trades and data, back to your MT4 was delayed, or the data you were recieving was stale, causing stale data to signal trades?( which would mismatch your signals to the real time market data).
If the report to you was delayed, then the trades may have gone off in real time, correctly but didn't show up on your machine until some time after.
If the data was delayed, then all the signals would have been out of sync with true prices and could create a wild card type scenario (if you will).

Thanks
John

Is there a site that has recorded broker comparison spread data, which was captured during high volatility periods? To me that would be the most helpful spread comparison data.

jasonrogers posted:
Hi John,

Seeing has no one else has responded to you so far, I just wanted to make a quick reply to say that I'm FXCM's representative here on Myfxbook, and I'm available to answer any questions you have about our services. 😄

Hi Jason,
If you could clarify a bit more on the account types at FXCM. I understand FXCM is a NDD, however that does not mean the third party liquidity sources you're using are not acting as dealing desks, either through algo's or other methods.
Do all of the platform types, account types, and account sizes route to the same liquidity sources?
Can you also tell if there are products other than currencies traded at FXCM?
Thanks
John

TomD131 posted:

gatoreyefx posted:
How they make their profits:
----------------------------------

Oanda is a Market Maker who makes their profit on the spread. Their average spread is around 1.3 pips.
FXCM on the other hand is a STP broker with tight spreads, who makes their profit on commissions charged on each trade.
ge

While this is true, this is not the entire picture. Oanda, being a market maker, makes profits on clients' losses, not just the spread. FXCM makes profits on any spread markup that they do (if any) as well as their relatively high commissions.

the problem I have with Oanda, is the inherent conflict of interest which exist between a Market Maker and a Profitable Trader. My success is their loss, so obviously they have to do things to control or limit successful traders. Look at it this way, if all Oandas Traders were successful, they would be out of business. If all FXCM's traders were successful they would be a thriving business. (since FXCM profits on executed trades, winners and losers). Oanda takes the other side of my trade, so the more I win, the more they lose. Thats the part that makes me cautious about using Oanda, Even though the people seem great.

If I'm incorrect about any of this please let me know. It just seems to me like Oanda's Dealing Desk, reduces successful traders odds of success. jmho.
Thanks
John

@moneycoder

Oanda has repeatedly stated they do not make money when then clients lose. They will square the book up to a point and then pass the trades through to market. They do not act like your average MT broker and never has in the past.

They've built their reputation on that.

moneycoder posted:
Is there a site that has recorded broker comparison spread data, which was captured during high volatility periods? To me that would be the most helpful spread comparison data.

have you look at the broker tab at this site, Myfxbook, at all????????????????????????

Hi John,

Every quarter Forex Magnates reports on the US profitability of retail traders - this should be a helpful, fact-based guide for you:. Here is the last/Q3 report: https://forexmagnates.com/exclusive-interactivebrokers-customers-profitable-q3-2014-us-forex-profitability-report/

Any of our Customer Experience teams are also happy to answer your questions about OANDA and our business practises. You can reach them as such: https://www.oanda.com/corp/contact/

Cheers,
Team OANDA

@OANDAhelps

Hi Oanda Team,

When are you going to do something about your spreads? A direct comparison to FXCM shows your about 200% to 300% more expensive.

And for the record this is not my comparison: https://screencast.com/t/BBxcIjAcq

And when are you going to take out those delays you wrote into the platform? Your closeall function is so slow you can't even get out fast enough to keep the profit you had. Takes me anything from 30 to 60 seconds to get out. Used to be 1 second.

I am an Oanda client, but like the rest of them I am extremely unhappy with what you've done with the place.

240Z posted:

moneycoder posted:
Is there a site that has recorded broker comparison spread data, which was captured during high volatility periods? To me that would be the most helpful spread comparison data.

have you look at the broker tab at this site, Myfxbook, at all????????????????????????

Yes, I've looked extensively, have you? I saw nothing that showed comparisons of spreads during high volatility periods. That's why I asked. If you know specifically where high volatility period spreads can be compared, please share. I also searched the net for more than an hour.
Thanks
John

I also think the broker comparison tables would be far more helpful if they could be sorted by location. Comparing brokers that can't open accounts in your own country, with those who can makes no sense to me. jmho

theHand posted:
@moneycoder

Oanda has repeatedly stated they do not make money when then clients lose. They will square the book up to a point and then pass the trades through to market. They do not act like your average MT broker and never has in the past.

They've built their reputation on that.

I'm not sure I understand how taking the opposite side of a trade that goes against you can result in not taking a loss? If I win on a trade, then the person or company(even Oanda) that took the opposite side of my trade, took a loss. It's impossible to own something that goes down, and not have it devalue your account.
On the other had, If a market maker owns something and it goes up, they can dump it and prevent themselves from making more. So they(Oanda) could dump their winning position(my losing position) to prevent their own profit if they choose. And I respect that. By them dumping a winner, they have opted not to take the profit..
 But they cannot prevent a losing position from devaluing their account. Nobody can. So (to me) my win, is still their loss, which gives them or any market maker (in my mind), a clear incentive to control or limit my wins. It's that conflict of interest that successful traders need to consider. Unsuccessful traders wouldn't have the same concern as they are not threat to the market maker.
Disclaimer, I love Oanda, and if I do pick a dealing desk to open my next account, it will be with Oanda.
Thanks
John