Oanda versus IB

[seancass]

I wonder whether I might call upon the collective wisdom of other forex brokers in order to seek answers to the following?

For forex charting purposes I favour Ensign, which can, of course, pick-up its data feed from Interactive Brokers as well as E Signal and a few other data providers. However, I like the Oanda trading platform, feel comfortable with it and feel confident about Oanda as a forex broker. The Oanda charting facility, however, is limited in respect of supplying what I require (predominantly the CCI indicator trading Ken Wood's (Woodie's) methodology with his integrated settings, for which there is a template on Ensign already constructed for this specific purpose.) It is for this reason that I want to use Ensign for my charting. Ensign cannot, however, take a data feed from Oanda so:

Question 1. What are the pros and cons in relation to trading forex via IB as opposed to Oanda?

Question 2. Have any members here any experience that can indicate to what extend the prices quoted by Oanda mirror those quoted by IB? Is there a marked difference?

Thank you in anticipation.

Sean

 

[neil]

Go over to Elitetrader.com and do a search - there are seveal threads dedicated to the question - boils down to horses for courses.

 

[a_gnome]

My 2p's worth on the question:
1. OandA are reasonably fair as far as a single counter-party broker are concerned. I have only once heard of any instance of their putting someone on manual execution when they were trading large size and making too much money off them. You can trade any size with them which is great for beginners who are starting out. Their spreads are pretty narrow but get very wide during news releases though the slippage is pretty low on the entry for news breakout strategies. They quote in fractions of a pip for the majors but they then move this pippette around so that the effective spread is actually larger than it appears.

2. IB are a genuine ECN so are completely fair. They seems to have 3 contributors quoting in the majors in good size. The fact that they are multi-contributor means that they are an excellent platform if you are trying to get filled on a limit order as the "noise" in the quotes means that you are more likely to get your price. Because of this noise for stop orders they require two prints beyond your level for the stop to be activated which means that you are more likely to get slippage. Their minimum size is ~ $20k and they charge a small commission on top of the spread. The spreads are really tight. The tight spreads and large size make IB a really good platform IMHO.


As far as the prices mirroring each other - I would say that IB more truely reflect the current market as they are an ECN and OandA tend to shade their prices a little if they have taken too much on one side though the prices are unlikely to be out by more than the spread as the arb'ers will step in.

Hope this is of some use for you.

 

[seancass]

Thank you A Gnome and Neil - very useful.

I compared Oanda with IG markets yesterday in respect of comparing deviation from quotes and they were very much in tandem and out on occasions by one pip only. I guess what I am going to end up doing is to use Ensign for charting and make my executions through Oanda. Oanda, of course, don't support futures but do you know if IB supports spot forex?
Thanks

My 2p's worth on the question:
1. OandA are reasonably fair as far as a single counter-party broker are concerned. I have only once heard of any instance of their putting someone on manual execution when they were trading large size and making too much money off them. You can trade any size with them which is great for beginners who are starting out. Their spreads are pretty narrow but get very wide during news releases though the slippage is pretty low on the entry for news breakout strategies. They quote in fractions of a pip for the majors but they then move this pippette around so that the effective spread is actually larger than it appears.

2. IB are a genuine ECN so are completely fair. They seems to have 3 contributors quoting in the majors in good size. The fact that they are multi-contributor means that they are an excellent platform if you are trying to get filled on a limit order as the "noise" in the quotes means that you are more likely to get your price. Because of this noise for stop orders they require two prints beyond your level for the stop to be activated which means that you are more likely to get slippage. Their minimum size is ~ $20k and they charge a small commission on top of the spread. The spreads are really tight. The tight spreads and large size make IB a really good platform IMHO.


As far as the prices mirroring each other - I would say that IB more truely reflect the current market as they are an ECN and OandA tend to shade their prices a little if they have taken too much on one side though the prices are unlikely to be out by more than the spread as the arb'ers will step in.

Hope this is of some use for you.

 

[neil]

Spot on IB

Thank you A Gnome and Neil - very useful.

I compared Oanda with IG markets yesterday in respect of comparing deviation from quotes and they were very much in tandem and out on occasions by one pip only. I guess what I am going to end up doing is to use Ensign for charting and make my executions through Oanda. Oanda, of course, don't support futures but do you know if IB supports spot forex?
Thanks

There is an IB thread on this site therefore you could contact their rep. and ask for details. Yes they deal in

spot.http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=18316&page=1&pp=10

 

[jezza888]

Does anyone know if there is a way to add different indicators to oanda charts in the same way you can with metatrader?