OANDA Help Portal

Chart Tab

The Chart tab lets you customize chart features.

Draw Horizontal Graph Line: Check this box to show a horizontal crosshair running across the chart area at the cursor location.

Draw Vertical Graph Line: Check this box to show a vertical crosshair running across the chart area at the cursor location.

Draw Graph Information Box: Shows detailed rate information in the bottom-left corner of the graph for the time at the cursor location. This information varies with the type of graph you've selected.

Auto-extend Trendlines Left: Left-extends trendlines to the beginning of the graph. (For information on trendlines, see Drawing Trendlines.)

Auto-extend Trendlines Right: Right-extends trendlines to the end of the graph.

Magnetic Trendlines: Automatically snaps trendlines to the exchange rate curve in the graph.

Default Trendline Colour: Choose from a list of styles for trendlines (dotted line, solid line, and so on).

Trendline Style: Shows detailed rate information in the bottom-left corner of the graph for the time at the cursor location. This information varies with the type of graph you've selected.

Hide Empty Candles: Check this box to ignore empty candlesticks when calculating overlay/indicator data.

Daily Candle Start/End Time: Choose the time of day at which daily candlesticks start and end.

Rates Tab

The Rates tab lets you specify which currency pairs and commodities are shown in the fxTrade interface.

The pairs and pair order shown in the Rates List on the right side of the Rates tab reflect what appears in the fxTrade interface.

• To add currencies to the fxTrade interface, select them from the list on the left and click Add to add them to the Rates List. (To add all currencies, click Add All.)
• To remove currencies from the fxTrade interface, select them from the Rates List on the right and click Remove. (To remove all currencies and start again, click Remove All.)
• To add or remove commodities or CFDs (not available in the United States), change the pull-down menu (located above the list on the left) to Commodities or CFDs.
• To change the order in which currency pairs are displayed in the interface, from the Rates List on the right side, select each currency pair you want to move, and then click the arrows next to Move Up or Move Down

Periods Tab

The Periods tab lets you specify which time periods you would like to appear in the time period granularity dropdown on your charts.

The time periods shown in the Selected Periods list on the right side of the Periods tab reflect which periods appear in the dropdown in the fxTrade charts.

• To add time periods to the dropdown, select them from the list of All Time Periods on the left and click Add to add them to the Selected Periods list. (To add all time periods, Add All.)
• To remove time periods from the dropdown, select them from the Selected Periods list on the right and click Remove. (To remove all time periods and start again, click Remove All.)

Trading Tab

The Trading tab lets you change the default parameters that appear when you're making a trade.

Change Trading Settings for Individual Currency Pairs

The following settings apply to individual currency pairs (if you select a pair and click the Use Custom Settings box).

Market Choose a currency pair from this list box if you want to use custom settings for that pair. Leave "DEFAULT" selected if you want the settings to apply to all pairs.

Use Custom Settings: Check this box if you want the settings to apply to the pair you selected from the MARKET list box. (This box is grayed out if the DEFAULT market is selected.)
After you customize settings for a particular currency pair, you can toggle between those settings and the default settings by clicking this check box on and off.

Default Order Size: The default order size used in any "units" field (for example, in the Buy/Sell window). Use the pull-down menu beside this field to set the number of units (for example, 10,000) of the base currency or the account currency, or the percentage of units available to trade.

As an example for the percentage available to trade, if you have a USD account with 20:1 leverage, USD $10,000 of margin available, and you've set the default order size to 20%, then for currency pairs with the base currency of USD the following value will be displayed in the units field: (10,000 x 20) x 20% = 40,000 units.

For pairs where the base currency differs from the account's home currency, the default unit size reflects the current exchange rate of the base currency when converted to the home currency. In the previous example (with a USD home currency), if the EUR/USD rate at the time was 1.5000, then the default unit size in the Buy/Sell window for the EUR/USD pair would be (10,000 x 20) x 20% / 1.5000 = 26,666 units.

Default Bounds: The default value that appears in the bounds fields of the Buy/Sell window. Choose from pips, a percentage, or a monetary amount.

Default Stop Loss: The default value that appears in the Stop Loss field. Choose from pips, a percentage, or a monetary amount.

Default Take Profit: The default value that appears in the Take Profit field. Choose from pips, a percentage, or a monetary amount.

Default Trailing Stop: For trailing stops, determines the default amount and units (pips, price, a set amount of the home currency, or a percentage of price, balance, or NAV).

Note: the trigger price is calculated from the bid price (for short market orders) or the sell price (for long market orders). That is, the trigger price is determined by the maximum trailing stop plus the spread.

Default Entry Order Duration: By default, Entry Order expire after one week. Instead, you can set the default expiry period to a selected number of hours, days, or even a month.

Global Trading Settings

The following settings apply to all currency pairs:

Enable Bounds By Default: Automatically enables and populates the bounds fields in the Order window with the default bounds.

Enable Stop Loss By Default: Automatically enables and populates the stop loss field in the Order window with the default stop loss.

Enable Take Profit By Default: Automatically enables and populates the take profit field in the Order window with the default take profit.

Enable Trailing Stop By Default: Enables the trailing stop and uses the default trailing stop values every time the Entry Order and Market Order windows are opened, or for any one-click trades.

Show Confirmation Windows: Click if you want to see windows asking you to confirm your action after you buy, sell, close, or modify a trade order.

Confirm Position Reversal: Notifies you if a position is being reduced, closed, or reversed by a new trade. This notification will be issued even if confirmation windows are disabled.

Confirm One-Click Trades: When checked, provides a confirmation window for one-click trades that you make from the Quote Panel.

Locale Tab

The Locale tab lets you choose settings related to your language and geographic location.

Language: Changes the text of the fxTrade interface to a different language. Choose from a list of available languages.

Time Zone: By default, the time zone matches the one set in your computer's operating system. To change the time zone, select the new time (London - Greenwich Mean Time +/- n hours). Because some regions use Daylight Savings Time at different times of the year, you also need to select your geographic area to ensure the system tracks time changes.

Number Format: Numbers are written in varying formats around the world. To change the number format shown in the fxTrade interface, choose your country and then choose your language (only those languages spoken in the country are shown). A sample number appears, showing you the number format that will be used in the fxTrade interface.

Sounds Tab

The Sounds tab lets you add your own sound alerts for various events. If you check an event, click Browse to locate a sound file to associate with that event. You can use any aiff, au, midi, or wav file located on your computer.

Misc Tab

The Misc tab lets you choose various miscellaneous settings.

Show Dual Bid/Ask Columns: When checked, shows the bid and ask prices in separate columns in the Rates List. When not checked, the last three digits of the ask price are shown after the bid price in the same column (for example, 1.56950/959).

Colour Coded Tables: Shows pipettes, or "fractional pips," in the tables, graphs, and current rate displays. If pipettes are hidden, the rates are rounded to the nearest pip for display purposes.

Full Word Filter: Sets the table filter to search for whole words only.

Show Pipettes: Displays full price rates to the Pipette (5th decimal place) level if enabled, or rounds to Pip (4th decimal place) level if disabled.

Sort Sub Accounts: When checked, sub-accounts are ordered alphabetically. When not checked, sub-accounts are typically ordered by creation date. (This order appears in both menus and the sub-account switcher.)

Show Sub Account Switcher: Shows buttons you can click to switch from one sub-account to another. These buttons appear in the Account Summary (when it's fully extended). They are numbered 1, 2, and so on, representing the order of the sub-accounts (as determined by the Sort Sub Accounts checkbox, above).

Default Account: Determines which subaccount is shown when you first log on the platform.

Lock Screen after: The fxTrade platform will be locked after the number of minutes you type in this field, and you will need to use your password to unlock it. Use a value of zero "0" if you want to disable screen locking.