I've been with Oanda for about a year... Here are the pros and cons

Hi. I've been trading with a live account with Oanda for about a year.

Oanda Pros:
1) It appears the practice and live accounts behave the same way.

2) The degree to which you can customize their charts is AWESOME!

3) LOVE that you can automatically set the size of your trade as a percent of the account balance. Similarly, set the TPs and SLs to a percent you want to take, or are willing to lose. I like the way this works so much that it is the main thing keeping me from switching to another broker.

4) They're financially stable per the CFTC reports. But for them to be making so much money, you kind of have to wonder how....

Oanda Cons:

1) Their mobile phone software is in DESPERATE need of an update!

2) You MUST set your charts to show BOTH the Bid AND Ask prices (not just the default Average price) so you can really see whether you are in danger of getting stopped out. Their spreads do vary quite a bit and I think that this makes it LOOK like they are stop hunting. If they ARE stop hunting, I believe they would be doing it by increasing the spread wide enough to hit the stop.

3) I can't confirm or deny whether they play technology games with access to the site. I have fiber coming into my home, and I'm on a fairly powerful Mac. But It does seem weird that when I'm making money I seem to have more issues than when I'm losing money.

In summary, I really want to love this broker. But I'm starting to believe I might be able to improve my performance by switching. I'm just really hooked on their software and financial stability. And I guess I'm still willing to "pay" for that. For the moment, anyway.

Hope this was helpful!