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Forex Trading Reviews & News 
In this week's DailyForex blog review, I will be reviewing a Forex blog that is really more like a full fledged website if I am judging by its professional level. The OANDA Forex blog is updated frequently with relevant content, the site is designed professionally, and the writing itself is on a very high level. In fact, as opposed to all the other blogs we have reviewed in the past, for which the process involved communicating with one or two bloggers, in this case, I corresponded with the official account of the site and it was al a lot more formal than in the past. The site is maintained by three main writers, and the team as a whole supplied the following answers to my interview questions:
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and the contributors to the blog.
"Currently, there are three individuals responsible for most of the content for OANDA’s MarketPulseFX blog . The team is located in Toronto, Canada and has a combined 45 years experience in the capital markets. Dean Popplewell has served as the head of the global trading desks with Canada’s largest banks, Alfonso Esparza specializes in emerging economies, and Scott Boyd provides market industry analysis".
2. How long have you been involved in the Forex market?
"In his twenty-year career, Dean has spent a full ten years as a professional currency trader and is also an expert in fixed income. Alfonso holds an MBA and worked as a currency trader for five years where he was responsible for the emerging economies desk . Scott has covered many markets, including equities and futures, but has concentrated exclusively on the forex market since joining OANDA in 2007."
3. How long have you been blogging?
"Before the first version of the blog was launched, Dean wrote a daily piece that was originally posted in the currency trader forum that OANDA has hosted since 2001. In 2006, OANDA launched the first version of its currency blog and Dean moved his daily outlook to the blog as part of the launch. Alfonso and Scott joined OANDA shortly after that and have been regular contributors since 2007. OANDA released a revamped blog just this past September to incorporate new features including a calendar of events, interest rates, and a real-time feed of OANDA’s currency pair dealable rates. We have also created Twitter accounts and have several interactive tools in development that we hope to add to the blog next year to further enhance our ability to share information critical to the success of all forex traders."
4. Who is your primary audience?
"Our audience reflects our trading partners and covers the entire scope of traders and trading objectives. We have a mix of institutional traders, international firms engaging in currency hedging, and private individuals – which for lack of a better term – we call our retail traders. For the most part, our retail traders are non-professional and vary in experience all the way from novices, to former professionals. As you can imagine, having such a varied client base means we have a wide-range of needs to address. For this reason, rather than writing a piece that may only be of interest for one particular type of client, we try to produce content and analysis that we believe provides an accurate assessment of what is happening in the markets, as well as the potential impact a particular news item or the latest economic indicator could have on exchange rates. Our traders can then use this information to formulate their own opinion and position themselves in such a way as best meets their trading objectives. The simple truth is that as active traders ourselves, we pay very close attention to the news and when we come across something that we feel is especially relevant, we make sure to highlight it in our blog or Twitter page. Unlike some bloggers however, we will never say “buy this” or “sell that”; our goal is to provide the most efficient means for traders to view key information, and to distill the content down to a format that makes it easier for our busy readers to assess and determine for themselves the steps they should enact to best position themselves, whether it be to profit on exchange rate fluctuations, or simply to preserve capital."
5. Why should someone read your blog?
"Well, we certainly touched upon this in the previous comment, but the key thing we try to keep in mind is that not everyone – especially those engaging in part-time currency trading – can spend hours a day tracking the news. We believe that the greatest service we can offer, is to sift through the myriad of press releases, market news, and government / corporate action notices that make the news services each day, and then report on those that have the potential for the greatest impact. We attempt to provide a condensed version of the story, yet still pass on the level of detail necessary to enable our traders to make informed decisions. Secondly, Dean’s FX provides a concise view for the trading day and should be mandatory reading for all currency traders. From just this one column, you can quickly see what happened in the European and Asian markets ahead of the North American open when volatility tends to be at its greatest. Alfonso reports on Central Bank actions, while Scott produces commentaries in the Market Pulse column that takes an in-depth look at the most important topics driving the markets. And finally, all three writers continually update news and Twitter feeds with intra-day events as they happen. A quick glance at the Forex News Update section of the blog is all you need to keep abreast of changing conditions that affect currency exchange rates."
6. In your opinion, what are the main advantages of the Forex market?
"I’m sure most people are already aware of the advantages of the forex market – daily transactions in the $3 trillion-dollar-a-day range means that forex is by far the largest and most liquid market, and it is the only market to offer true 24-hour trading, six days a week. Trading tends to be centered on a handful of currencies (i.e. “the big seven”) and intraday volatility is usually much greater than the equity markets and it is this volatility that provides opportunities to gain on short-term trades. The rules that restrict short-selling in other markets do not apply when dealing in forex, which means that it is possible to profit no matter which direction the market is running. From a cost-per-trade standpoint, trading forex with a web-based broker is the most cost-effective form of trading as it is based entirely on the spread. In addition, forex brokers also offer varying levels of margin-based leverage which, when used appropriately, enables you to trade values considerably higher than the actual deposits in your account. Taking all these advantages into consideration, we honestly believe that this is an exciting time to be trading forex. With the confusion that continues to reign in the equity markets and record-low yields in the fixed income sector, investors are quickly turning forex into a “must have” asset class."
Conclusion
I think it is very clear we are dealing with a world class Forex blog that is probably the most professional Forex site we have reviewed to date. Any and all information you would need about OANDA was covered in the answers above, which is a clear indication of the thorough and professional level at which the OANDA team conducts itself.
Advantages
: Content is written well, relevant, and covers the most important developments of the market. The team is very professional and clearly invest a lot of resources into the blog and its day to day maintenance.Disadvantages
: If I had to name one, I would have liked to see fundamental tutorials that a complete Forex beginner would find useful.Final Words
: It was a pleasure working with the team at the OANDA Forexblog and this is a blog that I think all Forex traders should read daily. Additionally, it would help for a lot of the bloggers we have reviewed in the past to learn from the level of this blog, both in terms of its content, design, and general level of professionalism.| Looking for a brokerage that’s ideal for beginner traders? Read our Plus500 review to see if this experience broker is right for you, or whether the social trading experience at eToro can help you get started. Or, if you need a platform suitable for advanced traders, check out our FXCM review to get the scoop on this top-rated Forex broker. |
