Oanda Reviews

Why is everyone so in love with Oanda? It is like they are the trendy platform these days because they have a popular forum. Anyway, I have nothing against them other than they have no hedging, no autotrade and no telephone number. I admit that many traders don't need those things, but they are kind of essential for some of us. I do think it is very cool how they allow any size trade. Also, their website is probably the best I've seen from a forex broker (for whatever that is worth).

I traded with Oanda in 2004 to 2005. They closed my account and received a personal email and phone call from what turned out to be there CEO. They said if I wanted to keep trading on their system I would have to hold trades for at least 5 minutes. Guess they did not like my big quick profits during the news.

I've used five brokers - Oanda is the ONLY one with genuine instant execution (NO slippage)- the spreads are the lowest I've seen anywhere and I reckon that these two elements alone make it the only place to trade. It's true that their charts aren't the best - that does NOT make them bad charts - they're just a little limited and I subscribe to XTick for excellent charts - BUT - it's very easy to trade right off the charts with Oanda - easy peasy to move limits and stops and I totally agree with Felix's analysis. But I give them 5 starts for the two most important elements above, great spreads and no slippage.

I love the Broker but I hate money side of it... There are too many fees... I agree with everything that Felix says about the broker it is true, but the part no one talks about is the ease of depositing and withdrawing money... By wire it will cost you whatever your bank charges for a wire transfer which can range from $15-25. By Palpal you will pay 2.9% of the transfer balance plus $0.30. Which can build up pretty quickly... I guess the safest way is to deposit by check or money order, but then you have to wait days for them to receive your money... And the only way to pay with a credit card is to use paypal. Also for withdrawing, you are only allowed one withdrawl per month for another $15.00 fee. And I they charged me $26.00 when i withdrew my money back to paypal. I'm not even sure where that came from. Also, if you deposit with wire you but withdraw with wire and same with paypal and check. So the least expensive depositing and withdrawing option is to write a check then send it to them wait a week or so for them to receive and process it and then request a check in the mail every week... I wish I have done that instead of rushing with my paypal, now I am stuck with this ~$50 charge each time i deposit and withdrawl money! (and this is only on a $1000.00 Other than that I LOVE OANDA.

This company has great potential, but definitely needs work. First, I would say they are good in terms of customer service and generally they seem honest and upfront. However, if you are a swing or position trader, its very difficult to carry a position with them over the weekend. There spreads can widen ridiculously and there advertised spreads mean nothing during those times. I generally don't trade news, but they say that there spreads can be just as wide at these times and also during market closes during the day. They are up front about the fact that they do this but it is not an industry standard and it does not mean they are being entirely fair - I have my suspicions. They will show you the fluctuation of spreads to the pip for the past 7 days, but I have not always found these to be completely accurate. Additionally, there charting platform leaves a lot to be desired, but in general it is stable. However, the need to access the platform through a search engine is a bit archaic. The 50:1 margins also leave something to be desired - this is the lowest out there and should at least be brought up to 100:1 - with the way the forex market is set up it still would not cause too much overexposure. They also do not offer trailing stops and some other frills that are increasingly standard in the forex world. In this business, its tough to find a solid broker. I am a Refco customer who got burned bad from there scandal. I found Oanda b/c they came so highly recommended through various forums and chats. It may not be great, but it still may be one of the better brokers out there. I'm not sure any forex broker deserves a rating above 3 - perhaps that will change someday

They guys are the real deal. I have been using them for a couple months now. Everything has worked the way that it's supposed to so far. Orders fill at the specified price and there servers stay online all the time. That's about all a guy can ask for. I would like to see an improved and more functional platform though. Other than that, they guys are tops in my book. If you want to actually make money trading the spot forex, then give these guys a shoot! :)

I have been with Oanda for as long as I have been trading live. I was with both Oanda and Refco, however the choice was made for me if you know what I mean! There is often a pip or two difference in their price boards and my IntelliCharts. Usually it is just timing based though and honestly, if you are trading that short a time frame you might need to rethink your overall trading strategy. Every order that I see on the screen gets filled at the price I see on the screen. I trade news, as does Felix, but not with the same strategy. In closing, I would like to personally rate Felix five stars. In an internet sea of affiliate marketers pushing trading materials that they have never used and strategies they couldn't trade at gunpoint, Felix is a safe harbor.

I find comments from Lalewicz funny, especially when you consider that he lives in the US, I think. I live in Europe and can wire up to 50.000 EUR to Oanda in 24 hours for a 1.50 EUR fee charged by the Bank only. Further, it doesn't seem excessive charging 40.00 EUR or 55.00 EUR for a wire transfer. I don't think that someone living in the US, where the funds are ultimately destined, can have a worse picture. I wouldn't recommend transfer funds by credit card and even less so by PayPal, but that's an individual option. I don't need to say much about OANDA. Look at my stars and to what has already been told. Honesty is of paramount importance to me and is perhaps the only reason why e.g. Deutsche Bank could survived the wars.

Simply the best. I know when I have problems with OANDA, they ALWAYS strive to make it right with the trader. I enjoy the fact that you are not corralled into lot sizes. You can buy as little as 1 unit or 1,000,000 units. Of course there is a lot of room for improvement for OANDA, but compared to the rest, OANDA IS SECOND TO NONE. OANDA IS TRUE BLUE.

Oanda is the only honest broker I have been with. They have filled me every time perfectly and have had no problems. Withdraws are easy and fast through paypal. I LOVE OANDA!

If it were not for forexbastards, I probably would have ended up using a cruddy or average broker. Oanda has been VERY good to me with quick fills and slipless stoplosses. I really don't see the point of a demo account, because you could trade using 1 unit lots (i.e. what I call penny slots) with no problems. Put in about $5 and you have a whole bunch of pennies to work with. As far as I know, Oanda is the only broker that would allow this, which is really nice, because it's possible to demo Oanda's live service with negligible risks. Plus, if you gain enough pips, you can go get yourself some congratulatory Chiclets! How awesome is that?? The only gripes I have are the low leverages and how the pip spreads jump during news time, but I think these can easily be overlooked. I would rather trade with a good broker than one that offers 400:1 yet seriously cuts in! to my profits. As for the pip spreads, it's really isolated to the gbp/usd, which could jump to 10 (!) at times. The other currency pairs do jump in spreads, but not as much. Outside of news time, however, the pip spreads are excellent! It's usually at 1.5 spread for eur/usd, but I saw it go down to 0.9 today -- excellent for scalping. I also really like Oanda's relatively low pip spread on pairs like the gbp/jpy. Some people may gripe about the charting, but I really have no complaints. It's simple, clean, and uncluttered, but if you're a hardcore technical analysis trader, it may not be very appealing. The analysis tools available are very limited, but most of the important TA indicators are there such as Bollinger, RSI, MACD, Williams, EMA, SMA, etc. There are also some desirable things missing like hedging. Opening a long position and shorting on the same currency pair will close the long position. Depending on a person's trading style it could either be annoying or a no biggy. I think whether or not a trader will like Oanda really depends on the style of trading, but I would at least give Oanda a shot. It's really worth it.

Oanda is a very solid broker. They are good to their customers and offer a very fine service. Though trading with them of late has been fairly difficult. As a news trader, as is popular on Felix's site, the "tradable" news is few. Just this week alone 7/10-14 2006 there have been five trades that I reluctantly sat out of because Oanda had a pip spread of 15 on UK,10 on UK,10 on UK,12 on AUS,10 on AUS. These reports were all very nice and moved a combined 110 pips! Two were profitable even with the large spread, though one is only able to double guess himself after the move has run its course. I am glad I still have the EUR/USD to trade. Oanda bases their spreads off of "available" liquidity... perhaps they should search for more? If that is even possible. I am currently SEARCHING myself for a broker to place funds with to trade very profitable GBP and AUD reports, hopefully less th! e spread. Though the negative, being just one of obviously very few honest brokers get them a 6/10 or a 3 star grade. If I find another broker with better spreads during these times, I will quickly remove a star. Thanks for the outlet.

2006-09-24 update ***BROKER SEARCHING INDIVIDUALS, PLEASE READ*** I have already left a review and gave this broker 3 of 5 stars. I feel obligated to leave another review. Everyone must understand that this broker is being ripped apart by people that news trade. This is just about the best broker out there if you do not news trade. I place 100% of my technical trades through Oanda. They have tight spreads of 1.5 - 4.0 on nearly all of the major pairs. They allow you to put exact dollar figures into trades, they do not require 1, 2, 3 lots etc. I use outside charts so that is not a problem. I do not know of another broker that I can actually trust and is so flexible as Oanda. It is difficult, find a broker that you like for news trading, do not use Oanda. Trust them for your technical trading. They deserve 4 1/2 stars as a non news trading broker and 2 of 5 for news trading.

While Oanda appears to be an honest organization, I found them to be coldly arrogant when it came to helping traders adap to their trading environment. After spending a month demoing on their FX Game, and going to the cost of wiring my money to them, I was phoned two days after I opened a live account and told Oanda would be closing my account because I had referred to their customer service reps by the common colloquism "kid" and had referred to one of the customer service reps as "in the parlance of straight-talking--a "jerk" because he responded to my concerns about filling my account security password onto a form as "not a basis for a relationship with Oanda. There seems to be an issue of trust." Duh. It took me finding the form and seeing that it was an electronic form--not a form to be faxed--and that the password field was encrypted. It never occurred to Oanda's customer service rep to simply say, it's an electronic form and the password field is encrypted. On another occasion, an Oanda customer service rep responded to my telling him that the Margin calculator appears to be broken (I was seeing greyed numbers in greyed data output fields) by saying "We are satisfied with it the way we are." These people are incredulous. I spent a month practicing on their demo, and turned down a contract to focus on the start-up of my live account, only to be phoned by Oanada customer service and be told they were closing my account only two days after I'd opened it, and that they didn't feel a courtesy call to give me a "warning" about their feelings was appropriate. I've been had. I'll give them 2 stars just for running tight opening pips and, from all I've heardm an honest operation. But in every other way, I've been HAD by Oanda...really harmed.

I've been with Oanda for more than a year and here are my observations: 1. Prons: 1.1 The tightest spread (so far); 1.2 Random position size i.e. it is not tight to lots and you can open a position with literally one dollar (that is NZD, which is the cheapest right now); 1.3 Instant (or almost instant) execution 1.4 Exotic pairs e.g. EUR/HUF etc 2. Cons: 2.1 Their charting tool is not as good as some other brokers e.g. Metatrader 2.1.1 No weekly and monthly charts; 2.1.2 Configurability of the indicators e.g. you cannot configure MA for e.g. the opening price etc .................. 2.2 Their API costs 600 USD unless your monthly volume is/greater than 12 000 000 USD (obviously irrelevant for those who are not going to automate their trading); 2.3 They widen their spread significantly before major economic releases; 2.4 They don't allow scalping (at least for the folks with big bucks); 2.5 You can't go long and short for the same pair in the same account; Having said that, even though the prons area looks shorter, it still beats the cons, especially 1.1 & 1.2. Besides, from a programmer point of view, for a platform based on a java applet, they did heck of a lot great job.

I wish people would stop sucking up to OANDA. Their spreads are getting so ridiculous that it is impossible to profitably trade news releases on some currency pairs with them. GBP/USD, USD/CAD and AUD/USD spread goes up to 15 pips around news releases. Yesterday they even had the cheek to widen the AUD/USD spread from 2 to 15 (!) pips only seconds before the CPI figures were released, but kept the spread at 15 pips for several minutes. If you're serious about trading you need an account with a direct access broker, not a bucket shop like OANDA.

The platform freezes all the time. In the big news is very hard to trade. I do not know if this happens in the live account but happens a lot in the game account. If you want to trade the news is better stay away from oanda.

2007-01-17 update This is my second review. In the first, I just complained. Now I must say: Oanda is great. Fast and reliable. The platform is easy to use. The only thing that I do not like is the spread in the news. I am using this broker for more than 6 months.

OANDA's pip spreads during news releases are becoming ridiculous nowadays. I'm seeing 15-20 pip spreads just before news releases as with many here. If it weren't for the outrageous pip spreads, I'd gladly give OANDA 5 stars. Anyone here find a broker that not only fills you and lets you exit correctly but also doesn't have a ridiculous pip spread before big news releases? If so, I'm moving my money there asap..

I opened an account with Oanda just 2 weeks ago because it was the highest rated broker on this site. The operative word is "WAS". I just closed it having never made a single trade with them. Once I saw the wide spreads they put on just before and during news releases, I figured that they must be a dishonest broker. The spreads should not widen at least until the market makes a big fast move. If the spreads widen in advance of the move when there is no activity, they are being manipulated at the brokers dealing desk. I think I have figured out why. Oanda is one of the few brokers that allows you to trade any size you want, not just mini or full size lots. Who do you think takes the other side of an odd size trade? What are the odds that there is another person out there who exactly at the same moment puts on a trade the exact same size as you or me and in the opposite ! direction? Slim to none. So, Oanda must be taking the other side of these trades. Since 90% of traders lose, Oanda is pocketing all this money. Now if a successful news trader comes along and Oanda is on the other side of the trade, then Oanda is losing money. This cannot be allowed to continue, hence the now very wide spreads. Oanda probably figures they are just leveling the playing field. Oanda wins on almost every trade with these huge spreads except if there is a very large move. With wide spreads, once you enter your order, you are in the hole for the entire spread. This is not for me. I have found another broker and hopefully an honest one that doesn't trade against its clients or manipulate the spreads.

One of the worst platforms available today - avoid Java based trading platforms like the plague and if you need a reason why then ask someone who traded with Oanda last week! Forget the widening spreads which are getting wider the platform problems are my biggest concern. News traders watch out! Every broker needs to either hedge your trade or pass it through to the interbank market and take the spread - with technology like Oanda I would be surprised if they can pass your trade through to the interbank market fast enough without the price moving against them. In short Oanda is probably starting to realize that they have a lot of clients who are trading spikes - a brokers nightmare!

Today I closed my OANDA account and will be looking for a new broker. Why? #1 - The spread during news releases times has greatly increased, FOR ALL CURRENCIES. #2 - The fills are not what they were in the demo account, seriously delayed during news times, which is the only time I trade. #3 - TOday their server crashed while I was in the middle of a trade. While trading the retracement of today's report, which was an 8 point pip advantage the server crashed turning it into a 5 pip loss, this after my fill was seriously delayed allowing me only a 19 pip gain on today's move. Add to that the denial by customer service of a problem when I called, and that at least 10 people told me they had the same issue. I truly believe they want nothing more to do with the news trading crowd that seems to have flocked to them in recent months.

if you want to trade news, just skip this broker (oanda). there is no way you can gain profits with them, 15 pips spread during the CPI UK, come on. be real, looking forward for another broker.

I switched to Oanda because my old broker, FxSolutions wouldn't fill my orders during news releases. Then, Felix stupidly talked to Oanda's CEO and the spread has been widening ever since, making it not worthwhile to trade the news any more. Thanks Felix

2006-09-18 update I had a take profit/limit filled last week. Then I got an email from Oanda that they had bad data. They cancelled the trade and took away my profit. Yesterday, I had a limit order with a 90 pip stop. They basically filled the order at the 90 pip stop. They said it was volatile trading. This was filled on open on Sunday (not a news release). I have had just terrible fills with them. I like their normal, non-news spreads, but their spread are so ridiculous that it is a huge risk leaving ANY limit order with Oanda, because they are likely to widen the spread to 20 pips, then give you a bad fill. I'm looking for a new broker...

1) Oanda's spread for Cable are simply getting ridiculous during news release, varying from 15~20 pips! I notice the huge 15 pips increase even 5 mins before the news was to be release. After which it could vary from 6~10 pips for another hour. 2) Their live server's connection seems to be highly unstable. Over the last 2 weeks there are a few occurrence where I cannot connect to the live server. It was mentioned in earlier post by other users as well. This is getting highly frustrating!

I though Oanda would be the savior...after demo trading for over 1 month, I had no losing news trades, and even with my Trade The News news service (which is probably a full second behind Reuters and Bloomberg), I never had a problem getting in on the bottom third of a spike. I can even go back into my demo platform results and prove this. Fast forward to my REAL account with them for the last month. All of a sudden, I'm buying the tops of spikes and selling on the bottoms of spikes, whereas before I was getting in the first third of the spike with no problem. Also, their spreads have widened by at least 5 pips over what they were during my demo. The GBP/USD, which was 10 pips a month ago, is now 15 pips. One time the USD/CAD spread actually widened to 17 pips upon the release of a report!!! The bottom line is this: as news traders, we used to need a mere 30-pip spike to make a good chunk of change. However, if you now have 15-pip spreads and delayed entries, a 30-pip spike may mean that you'll break even, unless you have Reuters or Bloomberg to give you that added advantage, but even then, does it really matter how fast you get the news if your order ends up delayed? Finally, let me share with you a story that further proves my point. One time during a trade I hit the 'buy' when I should have hit 'sell'. In the confusion, I KNOW I was a good second or two slower on the draw than I otherwise would have been. Not only did Oanda fill that order (a sell order), they actually filled me in at the BOTTOM of a spike that then went 50 pips against me. Had I clicked the 'buy' button instead, I have no doubt I would have been filled at the top of the spike. The only reason I don't rate them a "scam" is because, despite their faults, they're the best of the worst. Sad, isn't it?

I have never had any problems with Oanda. Platform is good with basic free charts. I have been with them for about 4 years now and it has been a good experience.

Spreads are a BIG problem at the moment. Used to love Oanda but not anymore. Stay away.

-15-20 pip spread at news time -Disconnections during news time -Poor customer service -They generally hat news traders This broker is a news trader’s ENEMY stay away

They used to be good, but are now they are bad like any other. They are widening spreads (today they widened the EUR/USD spread to 12 pips, I have never seen that, and on a not so important news like existing home sales, imagine NFP, the most was 10, the other pairs are much worst, from 15 to 20 pips) also it has crashed repeatedly and it has been dead slow on various transactions. This is unacceptable - stay away from Oanda!

Oanda went from the Best to Worst. They are fine if you are a long term trader, so is about any broker. I trade many different styles, when it comes to trading news events, they are the worst. They start at a 2 or 3 pip spread about 10 minutes before a news event. A few minutes before they raise the spread to 10 pips and just a few seconds before the release, they jump it to a 15 pip spread. What's worse is they keep the spread wide for 4 or 5 minutes, robbing people of any profits they potentially may have had. I compared them side by side with several other brokers, recorded the spreads during the news release and they were the absolute worst of all. I use to love Oanda and found out they are in this business for Oanda, not for their customers. If the Forex was regulated, they would be out of business for abusing their customers. They are truly a bucket shop.

Have been completely satisfied with oanda up until 3 weeks ago when they started to increase spreads widely during news time. Happened more than one time that an order of mine got filled and stopped out because of a 15 pip spread in eurusd. I don't like it anymore!

Simple and short, when someone raises the spread the last 3 seconds before a news release to 15-18 pips and keeps it there for 3-7 minutes they don't care if they lose customers. So many people [thousands] are coming into the forex market every month Oanda knows that the customers they lose will be replaced by their marketing.

Oanda used to be good, but now the spreads on EVERY news release are widened to 15-20pips on majors. SL order are dangerous and TP order will not be filled due to spreads at news times, and more frequent disconnections. Oanda doesn't care anyone except itself and becomes the biggest SCAM!!! I have to switch my broker now.

Oanda is a scam for news trading. 25 pip spread on the GBP for Retail Sales today.

25 pip spread during the UK retail sales announcement. Unbelievable. It used to be my favorite, I'm closing my account.

On 9/13/06 Oanda raised their spread on GBP/USD to 25 PIPS just seconds before a news report. I want a broker who will treat me fairly when there are news reports as well as other times of the day. They are no longer doing this, so they will lose my business as well as the business of many other upset customers. Raising and lowering their spreads to unbelievable amounts whenever they feel like it is nothing less than rape! If a customer puts a 25 PIP stop loss on a trade and Oanda slips in a 25 PIP spread a second before a news report that you trade, your stop loss is reached the second you enter and you immediately lose 25 pips because they dont have to split the spread between entry and exit, as seen yesterday. They should be ashamed of themselves!!! I just changed my 1 star to a deserved SCAM!!!

BEWARE OF OANDA!!!! I have used quite a few brokers and I used to love Oanda. Lately they have been getting absolutely ridiculous with the spreads around important news. 25+ pips, sometimes higher. I thought no problem I'll just stop trading the major news with them right! Wrong! Now they raise the spreads for everything, so even if you are already in a trade they suddenly decide to raise the spread and take out your stop loss. I contacted them and they basically told me "too bad there was a news release somewhere and spreads are unpredictable and it's part of trading" They have gone COMPLETELY DOWNHILL as a broker and are now just "ROBBING" their clients..... BEWARE.

Oanda does not want news traders and will do everything they can to get rid of us. Now up to 25 pip spread and climbing. They make no bones about it, news traders go home. F*** them I'll go somewhere else.

I have been with Oanda for 2 years and I have never had any real problems with them. Trades always executed promptly, quality fills, and attentive customer service. Deposits and withdrawals always processed quickly, now they even process them the same day if you request before 2pm EST. The news spread problem that many mention here, has not affected my trading one bit. I have maintained profitability without any problem for almost a full two years.

Oanda used to be great. Then it started widening spreads during news time. First to ten pips, then 15, but oh boy! Last week on GBP/USD it reached 25 pips!! Man, I am trying to find a new broker, these guys have gone from great to abysmal. Keep away!

I've traded with OANDA for 18 months. I do not use a stop loss and hold trades for about 6 hours on average. I trade majors and crosses. Two things that I've noticed that differentiate OANDA from other market makers are: 1) trading in units rather than lots or minilots, 2) second to second interest calculations. These two factors open up strategies that are not practical with other market makers and let you manage risk with very fine granularity. I invariably use limit orders rather than market orders. Trading this way my orders are filled exactly at the specified price 999 times out of 1000. On the rare occasion that there is slippage, it is generally 1-2 pips and may be in my favor as often as not. One recent addition to the demo accounts that never expire is the ability to create subaccounts in FXGame. This lets you test something the same way you would in live trading in one account, test another strategy in another account, and just experiment with something else in still another.

lowest of the low. scum is how I call them. what they dont tell you on the website is they have a min. 15 pip spread on eur/usd on "news" days. all days are news days. these guys went from the best to the worst. take a hit on their sucky spreads stop hunting and then on their platform. very disappointed. I closed my account after a year with them- these changed have only been recent (about a month) and if you can make money with them, whats the point?

OANDA was one of the best brokers until they started artificially raising their spreads before news, making it impossible to trade any news event. Like many OANDA users, I have also experienced "disconnects" during and after news so that trades cannot be closed. I appreciate David's insightful post on 8/23/06 about the IP lockout; it makes sense now that OANDA is targeting news users. What's really disconcerting is they are doing this without warning or integrity, which goes against the transparency and honesty they have touted over the years. It's really sad, as I've been with OANDA a long time. Now I have no choice but to vote with my feet. I don't think they'll ever repair their reputation.

I had opened a real account at oanda.com recently which is still there but i didnt transfer any funds as yet and i wont unless they are ready for a compromise. They always tell their customers that they need to widen the spread during news releases in order to compensate for slippage due to the large volumes being traded. So i wrote the following THREE TIMES to them, though with a a lightly different style: "I know by widening the spread on news releases you compensate for slippage but at the same time many a clint is left unhappy. Ive read many ppl are becoming dissatisfied with oanda because of this particular reason which is sad because your orders are claimed to be filled immediately unlike most other brokers. Another alternative to having a very wide spread at news releases, which i can suggest, is to give the client the option to select a trading range price in which a particular currency pair is to be bought or sold and not anymore if the price has moved beyond that. Say i want to buy 100k(wld act as max amount NOT THE AMOUNT WHICH MUST BE TRADED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE AFTER IT'S ISSUED) of EURUSD after a particular announcement and the price is at 1.2000 now. At the price some of my selected max amount of 100k would most likely be traded. Further i could select to buy from market price at news plus 5 pips up movement i.e. 1.2000-0005 in this case BUT THEREAFTER NO MORE.! Now lets say only 60k of my initial 100k specified amount has been trade in the range, i can well do away with the rest because ill at least be making some profit even if it moved only 10 pips on that announcement. In case it doesnt trade at all within the given range, ok, fine its better then to lose. In that case i believe both the client and the company will be satisfied and i believe most clients would appreciate this option. Ive heard of a broker already using this method. Also the clients could select between this option or the normal option in which case the usual spread of 15 pips or more on new would be taken as has been done. Thank you very much." Until now, no answer so it seems to me that the reviews here are perfectly alright. I wish we could put some pressure on these brokers by hacking their servers to just put it down until they agree with this compromise. Im not going to put my money there. The only thing which surprises me is that why isnt Felix moving to another broker?

09/27/06 update Oanda answered me and apparently took my advice. They said my info was valuable. I just hope put it into practice soon.

Just because they have a widened spread during news times doesn't make them a scam...they are very open about this up front...if you continue to trade with them knowing this ahead of time..please don't bitch if you pay a widened spread. They are a very honest broker (relatively speaking) and have a very good business model....a scam is when someone is sneaky and under-handedly swindles you from your money....a broker's policy that they make you aware of upfront is not a scam..if you disagree with the policy, then seek life elsewhere, but don't label them as a scam because you disagree with them...I make plenty of money through them...I just don't trade the news.

To answer to the global complain that Oanda enlarge spread during news , I will say , go to a broker with a fixing spread , like Real time forex ( 3 pips on majors in all markets condition ) However , if you trade during news , you will have a recote , with a new price. So you won't have the price you click. Brokers aren't philanthropic corporation : they have to earn money , so they don't want news trader More over , professional trader trade with big , very very big spread during news

I've traded with several brokers and seen what happens (freeze-ups, slippage, requotes etc). I've been with Oanda for 4 months now and had very few problems. I say very few because I was trying to close out my position and the platform vanished. That bothered me alot. However, since it hasn't happened again, I don't think it's worthy of focus. The charts aren't great, but they are sufficient. The platform is easy to use, and orders are ALWAYS filled instantly. Spreads are tight as they get until news times. Spreads widen a fair bit and eat a bit of your profit so be mindful of this when newstrading. 50:1 leverage is less than I would like. No trailing stops. Customer service is excellent. Friendly, and full of answers. Can open an account with $1 if you want. While Oanda is less than perfect, it is by far the best broker out there. It's the no frills, no gimmicks, straight-up real deal. When I was with FXCM, I never knew when my platform would freeze up (never took too long and almost always at news times), constant requotes, and customer service was useless. I never felt I was in control of my money. With Oanda, I know what I have, and I know where I'm at all the time. If I lose my money, I'm glad its me who lost it, and not some dealing desk that waited 30 seconds to place my order just in time for the retrace! 5 Stars for peace of mind and integrity. They can have six when they get 200:1 & TS.

I gave Oanda 5 stars because compared to any other broker on this web-site they deserve it! These "news traders" are idiots! What do they expect? During news and volatile times, of course the markets and the brokers are going to change the rules. These are the pains of investing. These same things happen inside of exchanges too--get over it! My suggestion to the news traders, GET A REAL STRATEGY! Don't blame Oanda for your lack of experience and your naivety of the markets and the organizations associated with them. I love Oanda and I hope they don't decide to change their strategy because of a few lazy wannabe traders....

I like many others used to LOVE OANDA, but now they have taken me to the cleaners for a bunch the last 2 weeks. Let me get this straight. I don't trade news, at least not on purpose. When you have an existing trade in and all the sudden your stop gets hit 10 to 30 out because they widened the spread is complete bull****. Then they fill your order late at the top of a spike only to be disconnected and then you find out that your order was placed late and now you are 15 pips back is more bull****. You contact them about this and they say it was your computer not there server. RIGHT. I had a glitch that said I had 151 million in my account after there server rejected a trade. Then the order was filled at the top of the spike and stopped out moments later. Huh, weierd. Believe it. They went from best to worst in a matter of days. Stops being hit with no price action? Sure the mi! n/max states there pip spread, but not the real price action. Can't use candles there because that is just the average price, it doesn't take into account the bull**** hikes they throw on you to stop hunt your account out. HEY OANDA, Here is some NEWS for you! EAT S***, some of us are position and day trading and your wiping our accounts out with artificial rate hikes. Couple that with the lousy charts, the nonsense ratio policy and you have a bankrupt company. Lates.

I've been using Oanda for almost 2 years and havent experienced any major issues with their service or platform. Their charting software is not the best but the most important things for me are tight spreads on the majors and reliable execution of orders. The bitching that goes on here about wide spreads during data releases just confirms my opinion that most would-be traders here are novices with very limited experience or knowledge of the mechanics of financial market places. During volatile market conditions all brokers have to face and deal with widening spreads from their liquidity providers. Thats the nature of the global interbank market. For some reason all the "Johnny come lately", trade from home novices that frequent this site think that for some reason brokers such as Oanda should wear the cost of this volatility by guaranteeing fixed spreads. Trading currencies intra day is not a get rich scheme but a highly skilled niche skill. If you cant devise a way to make money without betting on split second volatility during data releases then go and find something else to do.

OandA has disconnected my trading terminal 3 times this past week and this 3rd time was actually the exact timing of when my rules say to reverse the trade, thus I was unable to reverse the trade. I only actively watch the terminal between 5 mins to 3 hours a week because I have to wait for alerts the rest of the time. So what are the chances of disconnects happening the moment I go to close or open a new trade? ALONG with the fact that these disconnects and lockouts from the java client have very very rarely happened b4 I started trading 3 accounts through the desktop shortcut I use. I use the desktop shortcut so that I can have all 3 accounts logged in at once. It's interesting that within 5 minutes of after it got too risky to reverse my trading (because of my rules) the platform reconnects and lets me back in. Does someone at OandA know my system and is trading it against me? I have never had a single disconnect except for like a year or two ago. When I started trading 3 different accounts though these past 3 weeks I got 4 seperate disconnects averaging an hour long each and only 1 of them was during news. What's the point of using a broker that tries to control when you can and can't open or close a position?