Oanda Pluses:
-large capital base - recent 100MM USD capital infusion from venture capitalists: less likely of a refco situation - Refco was one of the largest FCM's in America and they went bankrupt. The retail fx player got screwed and after about 2 yrs of litigation received somewhere in the area of 25 cents on the dollar of their deposits
-tight spreads on most pairs MOST of the time
-large selection of currency pairs to trade
-adjustable margins
-easily linked sub accounts
-easy to move money between sub accounts
-unlimited time for demo accounts to give you more than the ubiquitous 30 windows that most brokers only give you
-can push thru trades easily of 5MM base units and up to 10MM without being requoted or dealer intervention
Oanda negatives:
-They are a dealing desk, so price is being manipulated, however, you will find that for the most part, the spreads are in line with some of the better players on the ECN level
-spreads widen 10 pips 15 minutes before Friday close and don't return to normal until 8pm EDT/EST Sun eve.
-monies returned only in the manner in which they were received, i.e. open with a check, returned with a check, opened with paypal, returned with paypal
-charting is limited
-java based platform, not C++/VB or another programming language written: java tends to be a little sluggish compared to platforms written in another language
-frequent disconnects - a common malady with most dealing desks when volume exceeds what the system can handle (by contrast, ECN's don't have dealing desks, they are just a platform to enter trades with their trading partners, so unless their liquidity partners stop accepting orders from the ECN, should always be up
-large capital base - recent 100MM USD capital infusion from venture capitalists: less likely of a refco situation - Refco was one of the largest FCM's in America and they went bankrupt. The retail fx player got screwed and after about 2 yrs of litigation received somewhere in the area of 25 cents on the dollar of their deposits
-tight spreads on most pairs MOST of the time
-large selection of currency pairs to trade
-adjustable margins
-easily linked sub accounts
-easy to move money between sub accounts
-unlimited time for demo accounts to give you more than the ubiquitous 30 windows that most brokers only give you
-can push thru trades easily of 5MM base units and up to 10MM without being requoted or dealer intervention
Oanda negatives:
-They are a dealing desk, so price is being manipulated, however, you will find that for the most part, the spreads are in line with some of the better players on the ECN level
-spreads widen 10 pips 15 minutes before Friday close and don't return to normal until 8pm EDT/EST Sun eve.
-monies returned only in the manner in which they were received, i.e. open with a check, returned with a check, opened with paypal, returned with paypal
-charting is limited
-java based platform, not C++/VB or another programming language written: java tends to be a little sluggish compared to platforms written in another language
-frequent disconnects - a common malady with most dealing desks when volume exceeds what the system can handle (by contrast, ECN's don't have dealing desks, they are just a platform to enter trades with their trading partners, so unless their liquidity partners stop accepting orders from the ECN, should always be up
I really don't want to have a 0 pip spread nor 1 pip spread but can't rest nor sleep... (Forexgen is which I mean about 0 pip spread)