June 25, 2004 - OANDA today announced it has introduced fractional pips or "pipettes" to narrow the trading spreads for many currency pairs offered on the company's online trading platform, fxTrade. For the first time, traders will be able to view and trade on spreads that are quoted to the fifth decimal point (pipette), making OANDA's spreads the narrowest in the industry, and offering traders a less expensive environment for trading currencies.
Most currency pairs are quoted to the fourth decimal place. For example, the Euro/U.S. Dollar spread was recently quoted on OANDA's fxTrade at 1.2105/7, with the spread, or difference, between buyers and sellers being 2 points or "pips". Now, traders using OANDA's fxTrade will see spreads quoted to the fifth decimal place (pipette), allowing EUR/USD spreads of say 1.8 pips, reducing significantly the difference between the price at which traders can buy and sell a currency pair. Narrower spreads offer clients reduced overall trading costs and a greater ability to execute complex, and often automated, trading strategies.
fxTrade is a fully automated trading platform where OANDA acts as the market maker and allows clients to execute trades in real time. It is derived from over 18 years of foreign exchange market research and analysis. Key features of the platform include a user friendly, intuitive front-end trading interface, fully automated trading, market transparency, instant settlement and deal confirmation, tight spreads on all major currencies offered, and the smallest transaction sizes available anywhere. Additionally, users can open accounts in seven different currencies, and 30 currency pairs are currently available for trading, including all of the major spots.
"Introducing fractional pips (pipettes) gives us much more flexibility in setting forex prices on our fxTrade platform, allowing us to narrow spreads to unprecedented levels," said Michael Stumm, President of OANDA. "Historically, many traders in the foreign exchange industry have been required to make decisions based on wide trading spreads and little market transparency. With tighter spreads and a fully automated trading environment, OANDA offers FX market participants the best solution for trading currencies in the industry."
About OANDA OANDA is a pioneer in Internet-based currency trading and a global leader in currency localization and information services. With one of the world's largest historical high frequency, filtered currency databases, OANDA was the first to offer a broad range of currency exchange rate information free of charge to the general public over the Web in 1995 and today it services over a million queries a day. OANDA became an Internet-based business-to-business application provider (ASP) in 1997 and currently services over 75,000 ASP clients globally. With FXTrade, OANDA was one of the first to bring a fully automated currency trading system to the Web in early 2001. The OANDA fxTrade system offers retail clients a cutting-edge platform that provides competitive, real-time access to the foreign exchange market.
