Scalping with Oanda , any problem ?

orange_trad · Jul 10, 2009

OK, first of all you cannot scalp at Oanda. Scalping is market making, its getting inside the spread, its buying bids and selling offers. What you're talking about is micro time-frame trading. Semantics over.

I know lots of guys who grid with Oanda. (Its a miserable way of pretending to trade, so let's not get a flame-war about it, I'm just using it as an example.) Gridding, in fast markets, involves frequent trades, more accurately frequent buying and selling. They never experienced problems getting filled on their orders. There's also an Aussie who trades crazy (meaning very, very often, like 300 rt/day, if I remember correctly) at Oanda, and he seems to be able to get accurate fills. Altough I haven't seen him around for a year now.

So, the short answer to your question is NO.

Ivanovich · Jul 10, 2009

Quote from cstfx:

Ivan

who you trading with now? You used to be a big proponent of Oanda until a few months ago and left them disgusted. Are you trading solely ECN now?

I'm with IB now. Oanda is worthless.

abe12345 · Jul 10, 2009

It's hard to scalp when there is no DOM. But I do it sometimes with OANDA.

abe12345 · Jul 10, 2009

Quote from Ivanovich:

I'm with IB now. Oanda is worthless.

Worthless huh? So far the only thing that is worthless is your post, because you don't actually explain why Oanada is worthless.

Surprise · Jul 10, 2009

Quote from orange_trad:

OK, first of all you cannot scalp at Oanda. Scalping is market making, its getting inside the spread, its buying bids and selling offers. What you're talking about is micro time-frame trading. Semantics over.

I know lots of guys who grid with Oanda. (Its a miserable way of pretending to trade, so let's not get a flame-war about it, I'm just using it as an example.) Gridding, in fast markets, involves frequent trades, more accurately frequent buying and selling. They never experienced problems getting filled on their orders. There's also an Aussie who trades crazy (meaning very, very often, like 300 rt/day, if I remember correctly) at Oanda, and he seems to be able to get accurate fills. Altough I haven't seen him around for a year now.

So, the short answer to your question is NO.

Thanks alot , i know what scalping is , ofcourse scalping with a DMA broker is better cuz u can bid and offer and this give some edge if u know how to do it correctly . But my question was about Oanda and you answered me very well , thanks again .

cabletrader · Jul 10, 2009

Quote from davidmaria1:

I missed everyone, and thought of you constantly.

lol, sure you did

As regards scalping, like you say the subject's been beaten to death.

Scalping (short-term trading) at Oanda can be extremely profitable as can be seen from the trading blotters I've posted, some of those trades lasted just a few seconds! Compared to longer term trading it's a lot more profitable, stops are tighter, positions larger, and it produces way more pips!

People who say it can't be done just haven't developed the skill to do it is all

orange_trad · Jul 11, 2009

Quote from cabletrader:

People who say it can't be done just haven't developed the skill to do it is all

I guess that's for me. When you say "scalping at Oanda is possible" its the same as you would say "selling burgers to McDonald's is possible". Sure you can sell burgers, but not to McDonald's. You claim you can make the market at Oanda... Too funny.

Let's see those blotters champ, and prove me that you're market making and not just micro tf trading... at Oanda!

cabletrader · Jul 11, 2009

Quote from orange_trad:

I guess that's for me. When you say "scalping at Oanda is possible" its the same as you would say "selling burgers to McDonald's is possible". Sure you can sell burgers, but not to McDonald's. You claim you can make the market at Oanda... Too funny. Let's see those blotters champ, and prove me that you're market making and not just micro tf trading... at Oanda!

In the context of this thread the word 'scalping' is generally undertsood to mean the fast opening/closing of a trade, that's why I wrote 'Scalping (short-term trading)', to avoid any misunderstanding.

And no, my remark wasn't directed at anyone in particular, hence my use of the word 'people' in the sentence 'People who say it can't be done just haven't developed the skill to do it is all'

Hope that helps, champ

short&naked · Jul 11, 2009

Quote from cabletrader:

lol, sure you did

As regards scalping, like you say the subject's been beaten to death.

Scalping (short-term trading) at Oanda can be extremely profitable as can be seen from the trading blotters I've posted, some of those trades lasted just a few seconds! Compared to longer term trading it's a lot more profitable, stops are tighter, positions larger, and it produces way more pips!

People who say it can't be done just haven't developed the skill to do it is all

Scalping is definately not more profitable than longer term trading over time!

It can be done, BUT as time passes those spreads will definately compound against you, just like your profits compound in your favor.

cabletrader · Jul 11, 2009

Quote from short&naked:

Scalping is definately not more profitable than longer term trading over time!

It can be done, BUT as time passes those spreads will definately compound against you, just like your profits compound in your favor.

Perhaps you're right but I don't understand how you arrive at that conclusion, please explain.

Admittedly my overhead is higher because of the volume of trades I make but it's all relative.

As an intraday short term trader (scalper)....

My trade size can afford to be larger because stops are tighter.
It usually takes less than an hour to see if a trade is right or wrong, sometimes minutes.
In the time it takes a longer term trader to find a trade set-up and wait for the trade to play out I will have executed perhaps hundereds of trades for between 5 and 10 pips each.
If the longer term trader's trade is wrong then taking into account the time it takes to find other trade set-ups to cover the loss, and make a profit, I could have executed literally hundreds if not thousands of trades.
There is more chance of fundamentals affecting market sentiment and therefore affecting a longer term trade, whereas I can avoid/exploit short term market reaction to scheduled data releases, changes to longer term market sentiment don't affect me as I don't have a longer term directional bias.
I don't have so much exposure to event risk, and I'm not exposed to the risk of weekend gaps.
I can adjust trade size on a trade by trade basis and therefore compound more aggressively.
My level of exposure is more flexible and can be adjusted according to the market, even on a minute by minute basis.
There are more opportunities to trade out of a losing trade.
There are more trading opportunities.

Overall I think shorter term trading is far more profitable than positional trading and unless there's a specific reason to trade longer term, ie time restrictions or liquidity issues, then intraday is by far the more lucrative way to trade.

I'm generalizing of course, there are some great positional traders and some lousy intraday traders, but on average....