RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
General Company Information
Founded back in 1996, OANDA is one of the pioneer online forex brokers. Nowadays It has grown into a large group with offices in Toronto, San Francisco, New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney. All group companies are duly regulated by the relevant authorities in the US, Singapore, Canada, the UK, Japan and Australia.
OANDA offers forex & CFDs trading and related services to both retail and institutional customers. The broker is a market maker, having one of the largest currency databases in the world. Its product portfolio includes more than 90 currencies and precious metal pairs, as well as CFD products including commodities, stock indices and bonds.
Regulation & Safety
OANDA Corporation is a registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It is also a member of the National Futures Association.
Brokers that are registered with the NFA are obliged to comply with an extensive set of rules. Although the US regulation is considered to be one of the best in terms of investor protection, the stringent regulatory rules are limiting from both traders’ and broker’s point of view.
For instance, NFA-registered brokers are required to maintain a net capital of at least $20 million to guarantee customers’ positions, which is the highest minimum capital requirement worldwide.
Besides, hedging is not allowed and leverage is limited to 1:50, while European brokers are free to provide leverages up to 1:1000 or even higher than that.
All OANDA Subsidiaries, including OANDA Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), OANDA (Canada) Corporation ULC (Canada), OANDA Europe Limited (UK), OANDA Japan Inc. (Japan) and OANDA Australia Pty Ltd. (Australia) are duly licensed and regulated by the respective bodies.
So, if you choose to open an account with Oanda, you need not worry about the security of the funds invested.
Trading Conditions
This broker offers really good conditions to trade in wide range of forex & CFDs instruments. Here are the highlights of Oanda`s trading conditions:
- No minimum initial deposit;
- No minimum trade size;
- Commission-free trading;
- Variable tight spreads, averaged 1.4 pips for the EUR/USD pair;
- Leverage up to 1:50 for US clients;
- NDD execution;
- Fast execution speed: 98%of trades executed by OANDA globally in 0.057 seconds.
Trading Accounts
| Account type | Minimum deposit | Minimum trade size | Maximum leverage | Average Spreads | |
| Standard | $1 | – | 1:50 | 1.4 pips on EUR/USD | |
OANDA offers a single account type. On the one hand, this limits clients’ choice; on the other, it means that the broker does not distinguish between small players and high-volume traders. All clients of Oanda are treated equally.
To make things even better, this broker doesn’t require any minimum deposit, nor minimum trade size. However, you need to have at least $1 in your account balance to place a trade.
Trading platforms
Oanda offers a wide range of trading platforms to its clients, including the most popular MetaTrader 4, its award-winning proprietary fxTrade, and Protrader Multi-Connect (PTMC).
fxTrade has a simple, yet operative interface, and what is more important – outstanding execution speed. According to OANDA`s website, this platform executes 98% of trades within 0.057 seconds or less. This platform comes in desktop, web and mobile versions. It
Furthermore, fxTrade is equipped with intuitive and powerful charting features, multiple sub-accounts to test different trading strategies and financial news and market analysis from leading news providers.
Earlier in 2016 Oanda integrated TradingView’s charting and trading solutions to fxTrade, making available to its clients some 60 pre-built technical indicators. The broker’s upgraded fxTrade platform provides direct access to the company’s news portal MarketPulse, which contains forex news, economic calendar, macroeconomic and technical analysis.
Furthermore, OANDA’s advanced forex analytical tools include the Forex Order Book: a 24-hour summary of open orders and positions held by broker’s clients that helps traders to make the best informed decisions. This unique feature compares OANDA’s clients’ open orders and positions for any major currency pair.
Another popular indicator, Top 100 Forex Traders Statistics, provides direct feedback on the trading activities of successful traders.
Of course, MetaTrader 4 is also within Oanda’s set of platforms, as it is offered by most brokers on the market and preferred by most traders. The platform comes equipped with great charting package, numerous built-in technical indicators, wide range of automated strategies (EAs), and extensive back-testing options. Those who are handy with code may generate their own EAs and custom indicators in the MQL programming language.
Oanda’s MT4 also includes hedging compatibility feature that simulates the trading of multiple long and short forex and CFD positions in the same instrument. No actual hedging of exposure results from use of this product.
Protrader Multi-Connect (PTMC) was added to Oanda’s suit of platforms in May this year. The platform, created by software developer PFSOFT, can be used by both institutional and retail traders and is available for desktop and mobile devices, as well as in a web-based version. It features a wide array of tools for multi-asset trading, alerts watch lists, smart chart trading with multiple chart types, drawings and studies, as well as fully customizable interface.
What is more, Protrader can be integrated with various functional APIs, with an unlimited number of liquidity providers and data feeds.
Payment methods
Clients of OANDA may make deposits and withdrawals from and to their accounts via debit/credit card, bank wire transfer, checks, PayPal and China UnionPay.
Conclusion
Although Its spreads are not among the tightest in the industry and leverage is capped to 1:50, OANDA is definitely a good choice of a brokerage. It offers low-cost trading and doesn’t charge commissions, but most importantly, it is a top forex broker with global reach and many years of experience, that is regulated by multiple authorities across the world. Here are, in a nutshell, the advantages and disadvantages of this broker:
Well-regulated & reputable x`broker Low leverage levels
No minimum initial deposit & minimum trade size MM model
Choice of trading platforms, MT4 available
Advanced trading tools
| Regulation & Safety 9 | |
| Minimum initial deposit & Trade size 9 | |
| Cost of trading (spread & commission) 7 | |
| Leverage 5 | |
| Overall 7.4 | |
Summary Although Its spreads are not among the tightest in the industry and leverage is capped to 1:50, OANDA is definitely a good choice of a brokerage. It offers low-cost trading and doesn’t charge commissions, but most importantly, it is a top forex broker with global reach and many years of experience, that is regulated by multiple authorities across the world. | Global reputable brokerage |
|---|---|
| : 3.3 (3 votes) | |
Paul Bradley
I whish I had read this before being scammed my life savings!!
Ashlie N Christie
I take it, you wouldn’t recommend this particular trading platform then.