[TRADE]

when I was trading for a prop shop, index derivatives through the eurex on trading technologies platform ( all supposedly very robust and legit) the same thing happened during FOMC and NFP, even through a regulated exchange the price activity and spread was erratic. even here it was a joke trading at these times.

you know what, even the fills are not gauranteed here. to be honest nothing, not even the regulated exchanges and the brokers trading within them are 100% accurate, spreads also vary, its a liquidity thing, all real world instances and realities of financial markets. I also traded through currenex, supposedly an institutional level platform for forex, and I remember the spreads here where higher than the industry (retail) average. they varied, non fixed. sometimes I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when the bid exceeded the ask on up surges and vice versa when the market plumeted.

you know what the guys running the shop told me, 25 years experience in the business. dont trade on news announcements, just dont do it. they told me about wonderful stories of traders blowing masses of money which took them best part of a year to accumulate, and all sorts of horrible stories of how it impacted their lives, enough to make anyone starting out in this business to not want to ever go there.

mick, dont expect your broker to tell you not to trade major news announcements because they wont, they are sales people with poisonous tongues, pretecting their own interest's. we must work it out for ourselves, what is in our own best interests based from experience.

just dont do it, we have seen, we know, it cannot be hidden from us. stay in control of what we do and we should all be fine.

Oanda is not the problem really, it is ourselves.