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[TheSpiritZ]

I'm not sure what NFP Non Farm Payroll translates to, but I just signed on with Oanda and really like their service a lot. I've had no complaints as of yet.

[4xis2ez]

Originally Posted by TheSpiritZ

I'm not sure what NFP Non Farm Payroll translates to, but I just signed on with Oanda and really like their service a lot. I've had no complaints as of yet.

It is the national monthly employment report for the USA. It causes big forex movement when the economist are way off in their prediction of the actual number.

[4xis2ez]

Hey Mick, when you withdraw your money from Oanda, please do so in increments. According to CFTC, Oanda has $36 million on its hands and if you withdraw all at once, that figure could drop to dangerously low levels.
Funny, FXCM has only $763K. http://www.cftc.gov/files/tm/fcm/tmfcmdata0702.pdf

[static]

Originally Posted by 4xis2ez

Hey Mick, when you withdraw your money from Oanda, please do so in increments.

Yeah, and give it all to me.

Please?

In all seriousness though, are you going to keep trading with them Mick or are you going to move everything over to CMC?

[MickMason]

Originally Posted by static

Yeah, and give it all to me.

Please?

In all seriousness though, are you going to keep trading with them Mick or are you going to move everything over to CMC?

Oh hey, I'm no different than you guys, I'm not wealthy by any means but I've worked hard for what I've got so as soon as I saw Oanda's capital reducing month-on-month http://www.cftc.gov/tm/tmfcm.htm?fro...=mktfcmcontent I withdrew the bulk of my account, remember what happened to Refco-fx clients?

If Oanda go broke (unlikely bearing in mind the majority who trade retail lose money) then none of my money would have been protected, clients are treated like any other non-priority creditor.

What I find really surprising when I read these forums is the sheer number of people trading this market who really don't seem to have a clue, how they ever expect to make any money is beyond me!

[MickMason]

Originally Posted by TheSpiritZ

What does "NFP? Mean???

Originally Posted by TheSpiritZ

I'm not sure what NFP Non Farm Payroll translates to, but I just signed on with Oanda and really like their service a lot. I've had no complaints as of yet.

Don't worry fella, you're above par for the average Oanda trader!


I rest my case......

[astro]

Hi Mick,
May I ask a few questions, if you don't mind?

First of all, I also use Oanda for live trading and although I don't trade the NFP announcements, I am annoyed by their dirty tricks (30 pip spread on cable, platform freeze) and it does affect me (in contrary to what others say here).

The 3 most important things I look for in a marketmaker are:
1. Credibility (which Oanda are starting to lose real fast)
2. Flexible position size: since my position size is calculated as a % of the balance, I need to be able to trade down to 100's of units (eg BUY 15,500 GBP/USD)
3. JAVA based platform: since I trade at work, I have problems with almost any installed software.

Mick, can you please describe how CMC comply with this?
Are you satisfied in general with their service?

Thanks,
Astro

[MickMason]

Originally Posted by astro

Hi Mick,
May I ask a few questions, if you don't mind?

First of all, I also use Oanda for live trading and although I don't trade the NFP announcements, I am annoyed by their dirty tricks (30 pip spread on cable, platform freeze) and it does affect me (in contrary to what others say here).

The 3 most important things I look for in a marketmaker are:
1. Credibility (which Oanda are starting to lose real fast)
2. Flexible position size: since my position size is calculated as a % of the balance, I need to be able to trade down to 100's of units (eg BUY 15,500 GBP/USD)
3. JAVA based platform: since I trade at work, I have problems with almost any installed software.

Mick, can you please describe how CMC comply with this?
Are you satisfied in general with their service?

Thanks,
Astro

Hi Astro

1. I agree, Oanda has lost a lot of credibility over the past few months, it's a shame because at first they were really a great company. CMC have cleaned up their act from when they were Deal4Free (or 'Steal4Free' as they were affectionately known around the City!), and they have a number of revenue sources not just FX. Being FSA regulated means funds up to a certain limit (70k?) are segregated and returned even if they go bust, clients aren't treated the same way as creditors.

2. Oanda were ideal for trading any size, from 1 unit up, not something that marketmakers like CMC offer. CMC's minimum trade size is 10k but above 10k it can be any size ie 10,001.

3. They have a java based platform although I haven't used it for a while, if I remember it was fairly basic but workable, before Marketmaker came out it was all there was!

I like CMC, they've got a UK office and dealing desk, spreads are tight compared to Oanda (2 on Eur/Usd, 3 on Gbp/Usd which is the same or better than Oanda during early European session, and they're fixed), no mysterious platform freezes or disconnects, requotes and fills even in the most volatile conditions, and something new they've just introduced is a guaranteed stop (although you pay a premium for it, 3pips on Eur/Usd), well worth the extra few bucks in some circumstances.

On the negative side their platform is a bit clunky, it's awkward changing orders, and they don't pay interest on balances less than 10k free equity ie cash not accounted for by open position margin or profit/loss. Also a big negative for me is they don't have any fund manager front-end so it means having a seperate platform up for each account.

If you want to get really professional then look at someone like Interactive Brokers, .5 pip spread is the norm plus a few dollars round turn cost, direct trading with other clients, depth of market, and all sorts of other stuff. You won't get the sugar-coated smoothed price feed that marketmakers offer but then it depends on what type of trader you are whether that will make a difference.

Hope that helps!

Mick

[astro]

Thanks Mick!

As to Interactive Brokers, I couldn't figure out from the website if they have charts, the REAL cost of a a round turn and the position sizes allowed.

I'll look into CMC.
thanks again
Astro

[jailumar]

Originally Posted by MickMason

lol, you guys must be pulling my leg here, you can't be serious

serious??

[MickMason]

Originally Posted by astro

Thanks Mick!

As to Interactive Brokers, I couldn't figure out from the website if they have charts, the REAL cost of a a round turn and the position sizes allowed.

I'll look into CMC.
thanks again
Astro

I know, it's not very clear, but as far as I could make out trade size above 25k and volume less than 100m per day costs .2 of a pip with a minimum charge of $2.50. They give an example of 1mio costs $20. If average spread is half a pip then total cost would be $70 compared to Oanda's 1.2 spread costs $120 (not including extra pipettes!) or CMC's 2 pip spread costing $200.

I don't think they have charts but there are so many free/cheap charting packages around, in fact Ensign can use IB price feed I believe.

Then there's direct deals with other clients, I've no idea how much they cost!

[MickMason]

Originally Posted by jailumar

serious??

[Atomised]

Mick only problem i have with CMC is they got rid of them Strategy Orders, where u could set a buy or sell price along with your limit to take profit and your stop loss, don't seem to be able to do this anymore !

[MickMason]

Originally Posted by Atomised

Mick only problem i have with CMC is they got rid of them Strategy Orders, where u could set a buy or sell price along with your limit to take profit and your stop loss, don't seem to be able to do this anymore !

You're right, I just called the help desk to ask, it can't be done. The 'help' desk (joke) hasn't improved much since last time I called, heaven knows where they recruit those guys!

In actual fact the CMC platform has to be about the crapiest I've come across, why they didn't just lease MΤ4 and save themselves the development costs I don't know.

Who are you trading with Atom? Are they any good?

[Atomised]

Well i'm still with CMC but don't really like the new upgrade they done, wish i could go back to the old one ! I tried asking about the old strategy orders on the chat thing on the platform and all i got was "use a OCO, one cancels the other", tried to explain myself a bit more but the nice guy or girl "left the conversation" !!! Just thinking though do u still have the address for their old Java based platform, maybe we could use them orders on that ?

At the moment i'm in the middle of tryna decide on a new broker, Oanda was the favourite but then their widening spreads would play havoc with some of my strats. So now i'm torn between Interbankfx and Fxdd, at the moment it's looking like Interbank. If anyone has any thoughts on these two i'd like to hear them.