IB or Oanda or ????

[late apex]

Quote from TriPack:

late_apex: Oanda shades against its net customer positions typically from 1.5 pips to zero pips. Compare its data feed with that of IdealPro or another interbank feed and you will detect times when the price is stable and the bid on one equals the ask on another. All these forex shops do some shading or other but the biggest problem for customers is slippage, not shading IMO, though the larger size you trade the larger the impact of shading on your profits:

http://www2.oanda.com/cgi-bin/msgboard/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=004378#000000

Sympatico had some good comments in the thread above.

Also the thread below is worth reading. There are lots of diverse opinions expressed within but my own opinion is that many of Oanda's customers are simply not sophisticated enough to recognize when they are being taken advantage of because Oanda is so subtle in how it delivers slippage or what some refer to as shading. Right now I am averaging 2.85 pips of slippage per round turn trade (single entry, single exit). This is in addition to the 1.5 pip spread so my effective cost to trade is 4.35 pips with Oanda. Your own slippage may vary depending on the type of strategy you employ, and for most people it will be less than what I experience. It is hard to measure the effect of shading on my positions, so it is not included in that number.

http://www2.oanda.com/cgi-bin/msgboard/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=004838#000000

If you didn't trade between 8:30 and 8:45 you probably didn't notice any problems on your FXTrade platform. Right after I put on my first trade at 8:29:58 the platform froze, went blank and I had to relog in. Coincidence? Between 8:30 and 8:45 I had to log in 4 times due to continuing problems - there was freezing on some orders and I was mysteriously filled at the worst possible price. Again, coincidence? A friend didn't trade at that time and that friend's platform had no disconnects or problems. Coincidence?

TriPack:

Comparing feeds: thanks for the advice, but my business is built on monitoring and trading multiple feeds.

Slippage: I experience zero slippage with my strategies while trading size with Oanda.

Your 2nd link: please see my previous reply.

Your 1st link: yes, I've already noticed that thread a couple of days ago, shortly after it was started. May I quote from the thread starter's very first post?

"On average, I lose about half of the spread (~0.9 pips) on such slippage. As I said before that's not too bad. But that alone is already a little bigger than my average profit per trade. So I'm hoping someone could explain if this involves price manipulation. If Oanda can improve in this area, I would really be thrilled. Or any comments on use this slippage more to my advantage?"

LOL. So, this guy admits from the get-go that his average profit per trade is, what, "a little" less than 0.9 pip? Way to go, loser, excuse me, William Piplover. I'm afraid he is living in his own fantasy world. Not to mention that he obviously hasn't done his most basic homework about how the trading platform actually works, as explained to him further down by others. Why doesn't he go and practice his mental masturbation, err, scalping "craft" on GLOBEX, instead of continuing to voluntarily subject himself to being abused and taken advantage of by those big bad racketeering evildoers at Oanda?

NFP issues: not doubting at all that you and others had connectivity problems yesterday. I've experienced my share of them, too, but not this time. Just got lucky, I guess.

late apex

_______________
Don't believe everything you think.

 

[MiamiHurricanes]

Quote from late apex:

I've been closely monitoring Oanda users' forum for a very long time.

And yes, I am intimately familiar with the "long thread" you're referring to. That thread is actually misnamed: it has very little to do with individualized "price shading" and everything to do with differences between Oanda's price feed and others' price feeds. Let's at least get our terms right if we are to have an intelligent discussion.

The statement you'd made earlier, to which I replied, was specifically about "price shading based on your positions." To prove the existence of such a practice at Oanda, all one would need to do is post a screen shot of 2 dealing windows from 2 Oanda accounts side by side, showing different bid or ask in at least 1 currency pair. Everything else is just talk. Should be a piece of cake, right?

late apex

You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and view. But I could not care less about what you think. I only post on here because maybe it will help some - and like I have already said... I make money from preventing my eyes from being gouged out by gathering info from others who post.

To me the thread on Oanda's forum and on Elitetrader and on Trade2Win where people are commenting about price shading is price shading. Call it what you want - it is about getting $#@!. Where you get worse pricing and favorable movements to your position are less in degree or exist for a much shorter time frame.

This is not a factor that is exclusive to Oanda. It is in effect to some degree in all of spot fx. I see it all of the time with my current counterparties.

I love to see such passionate defense of various brokers out there. They certainly have the technology and certainly have the intent. We are not talking about a centralized market with thousands of instruments....

 

[MiamiHurricanes]

.... Hello, why don't we consider. Lets all put our prospective Kool Aid and crack pipes down for a minute and think. I mean WTF, where is most of the volume traded in spot currency? CHFJPY? KRWCAD?

Most of the volume is traded in the majors. So we are talking about EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF, etc... Do you think that it is that hard to structure a tailor made dealing system with individualized pricing based on your position, accounts, margin, and IP addresses?

Oh but it is not worth it. It is only 1/2 pip here or a pip there. Look at the ticket IDs for one active broker in 1 day. On one of mine, I see 5 or 6 figures worth of ticket ID's - and that is only what I glance at marked by my trades.... and that is not Oanda where you can trade $1 USD notional...

 

[OddTrader]

I would have two points to make here.

1. For NFP or similar news: When trading with another Big name platform before switching to Oanda, I had to call the previous firm so many times (besides sending e-mails to clarify and investigate prices) often asking why their server(s?) breaking down and down again and again for more than one hour long each time as being told verbally over the phone. Finally I realised I was not welcomed by the firm anymore.

2. I'm interested in knowing why the (profitable) traders are still staying with Oanda if the costs of trading with Oanda are truly relatively higher when comparing to other better platforms. People are free to trade with other platforms and let us know their profitable experience with those good platforms, rather than mere arguments.

 

[OddTrader]

Quote from late apex:

Hypothetically speaking, if Oanda were to engage in shading, it would be remarkably easy to turn it against them instantly, neutralizing it effectively. Thanks to sub-accounts, allowing simultaneous opposite positions. Enough said.

If shading distance is constantly huge, perhaps a simple way (I haven't tried yet ) to make some free money is using two sub-accounts to trade the same pair.

When the stop loss order of a smaller quantity with one sub-account is run by so-called price shading, a stop order placed with another sub-account to initiate a new position of much bigger quantity should be also filled later for good profits. If not filled, Oanda could encounter some serious questions.

Of course you may have many better ways to do so.

Some shading haters then would become great shading lovers.

PS: Probably every ET trader knows this trick already very well, except me.

 

[OddTrader]

Quote from TriPack:

This is in addition to the 1.5 pip spread so my effective cost to trade is 4.35 pips with Oanda.

Frankly speaking I don't fully understand what is shading and its impact much, as I didn't read the threads completely yet.

However, the cost 4.35 pips should be a very unacceptable figure in general. Earning 3 pips a day would make you over 100% profits yearly using 30:1 margin.

Quote from TriPack:

A friend didn't trade at that time and that friend's platform had no disconnects or problems. Coincidence?

Luckily I did manage to catch some normal profits from the Friday's movement, as the disconnection/ reconnection happening with Oanda's API didn't actually cause much trouble during the time.

 

[jimrockford]

Quote from OddTrader:

If shading distance is constantly huge, perhaps a simple way (I haven't tried yet ) to make some free money is using two sub-accounts to trade the same pair.

When the stop loss order of a smaller quantity with one sub-account is run by so-called price shading, a stop order placed with another sub-account to initiate a new position of much bigger quantity should be also filled later for good profits. If not filled, Oanda could encounter some serious questions.

Of course you may have many better ways to do so.

Some shading haters then would become great shading lovers.

PS: Probably every ET trader knows this trick already very well, except me.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that your strategy is logically flawed and cannot possibly work. Your strategy would mean buying high and selling low, the opposite of what you desire.

I think that it would at least be theoretically possible to profit from price-shading by arbitraging one broker's price against prices elsewhere, but most FX brokers have rules against arbitrage. Remember, you are not supposed to win. FX dealer arbitrage is like counting cards at the blackjack table. It is not permitted, and if you get caught, you will be ejected from the casino. Is Oanda an exception? Does Oanda permit arbitrage?

 

[ElectricSavant]

Item 13G of the customer agreement.

You will not enter into any Transaction to exploit any temporal and/or minor inaccuracey in any exchange rate.

 

[jimrockford]

Quote from ElectricSavant:

Item 13G of the customer agreement.

You will not enter into any Transaction to exploit any temporal and/or minor inaccuracey in any exchange rate.

So the agreement protects Oanda from trading at inaccurate prices? Does the agreement also protect the customer from trading at inaccurate prices? If not, then why not?

 

[OddTrader]

Quote from jimrockford:

Maybe it's just me, but I think that your strategy is logically flawed and cannot possibly work. Your strategy would mean buying high and selling low, the opposite of what you desire.

I think that it would at least be theoretically possible to profit from price-shading by arbitraging one broker's price against prices elsewhere, but most FX brokers have rules against arbitrage. Remember, you are not supposed to win. FX dealer arbitrage is like counting cards at the blackjack table. It is not permitted, and if you get caught, you will be ejected from the casino. Is Oanda an exception? Does Oanda permit arbitrage?

LOL. Please don't use Oanda platform, never.

PS: Being a FX trading newbie, I learn a lot from your posts.

Q

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=920641#post920641

Quote from jimrockford:

2cents,

Does the amount by which ACM moves their spread vary, depending on your position size? If so, then what is the relationship? It seems to me that if you can measure the relationship, then maybe you can use this knowledge against them.

Suppose the amount by which they move the spread is the same, for all position sizes. You first take a very small position, opposite to the direction in which you wish to trade. They move the spread against your small position, at which time you hit them hard with a far larger position, your true order, going in the opposite direction.

UQ