Excellent, I may be joining you soon, I've just found out my 'F' Friends & Family account is still open! I can't see many professional traders staying with Oanda now, spreads may be nice but that's no good without reliability. I notice there's absolutely no comment, explanation, or even apology from Oanda on their forums. Bad business practice if you ask me....they're going to be left with nickel and dime kiddies at this rate. Oanda - the KMart of forex trading, cheap.....but garbage!
It's obvious they don't care. Stumm sent me an email a while back to ask me to verify account balances in a past year (they were auditing their systems) and during that I had asked him to comment on the connection issues that started at the end of 08. To be fair, they had connection issues for just about as long as I can remember, but they really have gotten worse in the end of 08 to now. He never replied back. And I was one of their larger clients. They obviously did not care.
I think you're right, it appears they simple don't give a damn. About a year ago I had a SA client with what to me was a substantially large account as well, he phoned them about processing a POA and asking about interest on his balance, he was so exasperated by the total incompetence of the reply he closed the account on the spot as he said he didn't trust them. I see an Oanda rep has replied on the forum but with totally incorrect bullshit information, no wonder these goons can't sort out the problems.....same shit, different day! I'm done with them this time, I'm serious, it's grief every day that I can well do without.
it would be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out. Oanda has to find a way to survive the business. In the meantime I am using my other broker too. The problem with bucket shops is that when something fishy happens or changes take place, there isn't a lot of transparency in how they work, only a lot of guessing.
What i am seeing is pretty much instant fills on market orders (as usual), but stops and target sit there for about a minute when triggered and don't fill. After a minute or so they get filled at the correct price. Maybe the client doesn't get updated fast enough, i don't know, but its definitely a bit sketchy at the moment.
Maybe these new mini cme forex futures will enable us smaller players to find a broker with some reliability of execution? (If you can find a broker to deal in mini futures)
Last I heard there was hardly any volume and crazy spreads, like 7 on M6E. If that's true then trading spot with a bucketshop would be cheaper Maybe it's improved....
Well, they say patience is a virtue therefore, one must wait a little longer for these new instruments to become worthwhile bothering with