Oanda Broker Review: Why Nobody Will Ever Promote Certain Brokers
admin on August 10th, 2008
With the media interest in online forex brokers skyrocketing in recent years and the subsequent proliferation of forex-related websites, one would think that all of the best online brokers would have been given abundant reviews, featured and linked to by dozens and dozens of websites and so on, all for the best interest of the forex trader. However, this statement doesn’t exactly hold true.
Introducing Brokers (IB) in the Forex World
Many online brokers offer an affiliate program, awarding their affiliates with either a flat rate per client subscription or a percentage on the site earnings. Of course, since most online brokers gain profit exclusively from their spreads, this means (at least to some extent) that spreads featured by such brokers tend to be higher than they could actually be. This doesn’t pose a big problem in terms of competition, since the vast majority of online brokers adopt this mechanism to drive investors to their sites anyway.
But what if some chose to do everything in their power to try and reduce the spreads, thus giving their traders favorable market conditions? They probably would have to renounce resorting to affiliate programs altogether, and reach all their customers by themselves.
Oanda Forex Broker Review
Oanda is one of such companies, maybe the best known of all among these. Comparing their conditions with a typical forex broker, we honestly think that their trading conditions are extremely competitive and much better than the standard online broker, including:
- trading any fraction of a lot (even just 1 unit);
- ability to set stop and limit orders with absolute precision;
- spreads that are variable (which brings an inherent additional risk to the table), but typically lower than the normal broker;
- second-by-second interest, etc.
The first three point are of great value for every forex trader, and as for the first two, we simply have no knowledge of any other online broker offering similar features. But then, why don’t you see Oanda reviewed and featured all across the Web? Of course, a great part of the answer lies in the fact that, as we already explained, they save on spreads by choosing not to have an IB program, so websites are rarely interested in featuring them.
Let’s clear something up: we are not saying that Oanda is the absolute best online broker you’ll ever find, because that’s not probably true: however, we definitely feel that it’s getting less reviews and much less exposure than it actually deserves.
Are brokers like Oanda destined to fade into obscurity? We honestly hope not, but the facts so far — safe for a few exceptions — tell us otherwise.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[...] IB and affiliate commissions in Forex which end up heavily damaging the common currency investorhttp://www.forexnewbies.com/oanda-broker-review-why-nobody-will-ever-promote-certain-brokers/Read “RE: Question for those with IBS” at The Kitchen Table ForumFor those of you who posted that [...]
December 16th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I have been with Oanda for about a year. Oanda is a market maker so they actively trade against there customers. They actively hunt stop losses. Oanda’s trading platform freezes often. I have lost my connection to my trading account while trading and they told me that I was having internet connectivity problems even though I could get to other web sites and log in to my email without a problem. They also did not know that I used to be a network administrator before telling me that I was having internet connectivity problems. Oanda is a highly manipulated environment. The correct term for this type of broker is a “Bucket Shop”
ECN brokers are the most free market breed of broker. They do not have a dealing desk that can be manipulated. ECN brokers want you to be successful because they make money when you make money. Oanda makes money when you loose. As time moves forward traders will opt for ECN brokers and market makers will go bust.