CMS vs Oanda vs D4F and bias

[SvenFoster]

Just thought Id post a recent aphany I had when looking for decent FX brokers charts...

I've been using D4F for a while now and have been pretty happy with FX through them but have issues with the charts being pap.
So after scanning the universe for mini FX brokers(small account at the mo) I took a look at CMS forex and Oanda.

I really like the charts from CMS but reliability is poor on the demo IMHO but I was prepared to deposit some money until... i found Oanda.

I took a look at them and the softwares ok, the charts are clear but not perfect but they have a great spread on EURUSD.(1.8pips and variable lot size) but since I devote most of my time to cable their 4pip spread doesn't compare well to D4F 3pip.

Since we all know that generally SBs are biased I still liked CMS until I started doing some comparisons on the range of movement, peaks/toughs and candle formations etc and found that CMS came out poor vs D4F and Oanda (and fxcm)

The range between peaks and troughs etc at one point was 92-60 and d4f and oanda were showing 92-(50/52). This is nothing to the breakout it showed(over 2 5min bars) when all other sources showed it just shy by 2 pips.

just an opinion but just a warning that pretty doesn't always mean better, of course DYOR.

 

[FetteredChinos]

are they charting different things? eg some charting the bid, others the ask, maybe the midpoint? that might explain the fake breakout..

???

FC

 

[SvenFoster]

are they charting different things? eg some charting the bid, others the ask, maybe the midpoint? that might explain the fake breakout..

???

FC

That was my first guess but all charts/prices were bids. Of course their prices were off by the spread to double the spread at some points. I expected some differences but they were definately leading the quote and then trailing the quote.

2 things worried me the most,

1. I would have traded differently depending on the chart used.
2. Since I'm looking for shortterm swings 10-30pts a 10pt reduction in range would kill me in the long term.

just thought that there must be others as well as me that assumed the SB's price would be worse(ok it dances a bit more but hey) It may well be over the longer term but thats not what I saw FC.

 

[FetteredChinos]

hmm, ok. not sure why the discrepancy..

arent prices marked by various sources anyway? they could be picking up feeds from different places?

also, on another note, looking for 10-30 points swings with a 3pt spread isnt the smartest move IMHO.

i presume you are using some sort of oscillator on a short time-frame ??

does it not transfer well to 30-min/hourly charts?

FC

 

[SvenFoster]

hmm, ok. not sure why the discrepancy..

arent prices marked by various sources anyway? they could be picking up feeds from different places?

I'm sure they are using saxo bank as their feed but saxo didn't appear to play games.

also, on another note, looking for 10-30 points swings with a 3pt spread isnt the smartest move IMHO.

i presume you are using some sort of oscillator on a short time-frame ??

does it not transfer well to 30-min/hourly charts?

FC

Not using any indicators except bollinger bands, setups on 5min, general direction of 30min, look for entry on 1min.
It may not be the smartest but it seems to work for me. at the mo.. whats your general tactic?

As for transfering to 30min that was one on the main reasons I'm looking a oanda. I figure that if my account size isn't up to swings of 40 pips or so then their variable lotsize would solve that by scaling it so that 40pips were nothing to be afraid of.

Would you say that 30mins has the most participants?

 

[FetteredChinos]

not sure. speaking from experience, im not a great fan of leaving positions overnight. normally the asian session is relatively quiet, but occasionally it has those 100 point moves which by sod's law always seem to be against me..

5 and 15 min charts would be a good compromise. i think there are some half-decent longerterm strategies on moneytec.com if you want to have a rummage there..

i just dont like not being able to sleep at night, which is partly why i have moved back to the Dow. doesnt move scarily overnight, unless some terror-related event has occured. i still look at forex, but it is a bit too trendy for my liking (i like to trade counter-trend (better hit rate) but FX tends to trend a bit more than expected. (gulp )

 

[SvenFoster]

Yeah I still convince myself once in a while that the trend cant continue and then I end up with an expression similar to.... followed by many other expressions.

still seem to do better when its range bound, convinced its because i subconciously believe bad things happen to those who wait.

 

[JumpOff]

So if you have been at oanda for a while now, how do you find the connection and uptime? I'm currently paper trading at CMS-forex.com. Their package is very easy to understand. I dislike the inability to place a stop loss at the time of the order, mainly because I can't get a connection to their servers when the price is really moving.

I've opened a simulator account at oanda.com and was playing around with the package yesterday afternoon. Last night and today I get a "connection refused" message everytime I try to connect to http://www.oanda.com/

Perhaps this is just a local problem on my system, I have only a dial up internet account at this time. (will get a high speed line before trading real money). But I don't think these problems are TCP/IP related. I can still get fast refresh content from other websites and PC anywhere to remote machines when I can't get to either of these servers...

JO

 

[Croesus]

Last night and today I get a "connection refused" message everytime I try to connect to http://www.oanda.com/

Perhaps this is just a local problem on my system, I have only a dial up internet account at this time.

Was an external attack, here is part of the message from Oanda Staff:

As of noon Eastern Daylight Time today, the ISPs at which the the OANDA servers are located started being massively attacked with a "Denial of Service" attack. The FBI is involved and was aware of the attack. Other firms were attacked as well. While our main Web site, http://www.oanda.com/ is not reachable at this time, in part because the attack is still ongoing. We were able to make our FXTrade servers available roughly two hours after the attack began. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you

 

[Gordon Gekko]

I have been with Oanda for 2 years now. No problems so far. Their charts although simple are crystal clear and easy to use.

 

[webbtz]

I am with Oanda myself anf have had no problems at all.

 

[josbarr]

Are you familiar with the LBR "Turtle Soup" set up?