Oanda's possible spot market share.

[RISKonFX]

Hello RiskonFx, thanks for responding.
Wikipedia says retail is 10% of spot market = $160 billion.
USA makes up 19% of volume about = $32 billion.
Forexmagnates shows Oanda as having 22% of national accounts = $7 billion.
7 divided by 160 = 4.4%
I know this is back alley math, but is it possible Oanda is 4.4% of retail volume?

They may have 22% of accounts, but if they don't pass orders into the Spot Market then this means very little. Most retail brokers don't pass client orders outside of the broker and settle in house, netting off longs against shorts. It's quite a complex area and certainly isn't what it seems at face value. Retail broker data is almost always skewed, grey and not representative of the entire picture.

As Xela mentioned, you can find quantified volume in fx futures. She knows far more than I do in that area.

 

[justrading]

They may have 22% of accounts, but if they don't pass orders into the Spot Market then this means very little. Most retail brokers don't pass client orders outside of the broker and settle in house, netting off longs against shorts. It's quite a complex area and certainly isn't what it seems at face value. Retail broker data is almost always skewed, grey and not representative of the entire picture.

As Xela mentioned, you can find quantified volume in fx futures. She knows far more than I do in that area.

I unfortunately stopped tracking FX futures, so I can't attest to the correlation between futures and spot, but for the rest of it, yes, spot on.

 

[comagnum]

Just to put it in perspective - If you did have quotes to all the inter-banks it would move so fast your computer would probably catch on fire. Oanda time & sales shows huge size streaming, however this is only a grain of sand on the beach in the huge Forex global markets.

 

[justrading]

Just to put it in perspective - If you did have quotes to all the inter-banks it would move so fast your computer would probably catch on fire. Oanda time & sales shows huge size streaming, however this is only a grain of sand on the beach in the huge Forex global markets.

View attachment 175052

He is referring specifically to spot, not total. Not sure if it is significant, but that is what he referred to.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/bis-currency-idUKL8N1BC4PL

 

[DepthTrade]

I am understanding what you guys are saying about this all possibly being Internal/ offsetting volume or whatever you want to label it
Another abstract unanswerable question. What is the max dollar amount which Oanda's data becomes irrelevant and one becomes a target? I assume one Never really becomes a client target because the "prices" still can't be pushed out too far (fabled stop hunting).
But at what dollar amount does one "become" the data Oanda's FxLabs tools are derived from. Earlier I had concluded it was about 4.5 million un-leveraged.
Is there ANY validity to my conclusions or am I way off.

 

[DepthTrade]

I am asking specifically about Oanda because I have used them for 16 years and have just recently become profitable, changing brokers doesn't appeal to me right now and I don't see how changing my strategy now could help when I STILL can't get the exact data I need.

Thanks again.

 

[Xela]

I am asking specifically about Oanda because I have used them for 16 years and have just recently become profitable, changing brokers doesn't appeal to me right now and I don't see how changing my strategy now could help when I STILL can't get the exact data I need.

If you want my opinion, for what it's worth, if anything: there's only a real reason to leave Oanda if you're appropriately funded for an account with a genuine broker (i.e. not a counterparty market-maker) and that's going to save you money on dealing-costs - if not, Oanda's probably about as good as you can do, overall (for all that some of their spreads aren't quite what they were, and are a little more variable, too).

Congratulations on becoming profitable, and make sure it lasts.

 

[comagnum]

Heres's an interesting article on Fx volume - which kind of makes sense. It's more or less how I attempt to do it.

https://www.fxstreet.com/education/volume-in-the-forex-markets-useful-or-not-201703091034

 

[zotium]

Oanda sounds like a bucket shop in Jesse Livermore's sense of the word.

I use Oanda too and being a possible stop hunting target is also my concern if I trade big with them.

I guess if you start trading a capital of more than $500,000 the big banks would be able to give you a better rate than Oanda?

 

[justrading]

Oanda sounds like a bucket shop in Jesse Livermore's sense of the word.

I use Oanda too and being a possible stop hunting target is also my concern if I trade big with them.

I guess if you start trading a capital of more than $500,000 the big banks would be able to give you a better rate than Oanda?

I trade FX with Oanda rather than IB, the IB nonsense of keeping sundry amounts in assorted currencies with every trade is more than I can stomach.

I chart and trade based on Sierra Charts feed, which comes off FXCM, and I execute with Oanda. Other than the fact I am charting at the mid and see Oanda at bid/ask, there really is no difference. I have had price move to within a couple of pips of my stop and it wasn't triggered. Of course my trade size is not interesting, but a couple of pips would require no effort.

What I do ensure is every so often I visit the Oanda page with spread data and update my data table with the widest spreads they have had in the last month. When I set my stop, I have a fraction of ATR I apply and to that I add that maximum spread. Early in my FX trading I got taken out simply by the widening of the spread at a data release. That only happened once and has never troubled me since.