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I have used LMAX for the first time on Thursday and Friday.
This message aims at giving a feedback on their convenience of use for FOREX discretionary trading.
Well... when I compare to other brokers I have used, it is very simple and straight-forward.
Interface is Web based: no specific software. I use Firefox for Web browsing. But I chose to use Chrome only for LMAX, in order that there is no interference with other pages which could be open in the browser.
Their web interface is really complete, with all the expected functions for trading, trades history, account management, etc.. But, during trading, I found it convenient to keep only 2 windows on the right quarter of my screen:
The biggest window allows placing order. As one can notice, it is really clean.
There are only the necessary fields.
On the top: prices.
Then quantity.
The type of order can be chosen through three tabs (market, limit, stop). "Market orders" tab is shown here. OCO exit orders (profit target + stop loss) is very easy: two ticks, two price differences, and it is attached automatically.
In the bottom part of the window, a recap' of margin and commission.
And the "Sell" and "Buy" buttons. Difficult to miss them.
It allows "one-click order": when the "Sell" or "Buy" button is clicked, the order is directly implemented, with no request of confirmation (and the OCO exit orders are automatically attached). This is very convenient for some styles of trading.
The small window I have kept below allows me to check if I am flat.
When a trade is on the way, there is a a line giving all information on the trade. It allows checking the filled entry price, the stop-loss and the profit-target level.
When flat, there the box shall be empty (as shown).
I have sent an e-mail to LMAX to ask for their comments, and ask what would have happened if I was in position (250-pip loss?).
LMAX, at least in Europe, appoints a dedicated person to follow each client. He called me within 30 minutes from his home (I heard the children playing in the background). Before calling me, he had a phone call with LMAX operations people. As it is clearly a problem from LMAX, and he thought that I was in position during the event, he simply proposed a refund of the loss. (Actually, I was not in position. So I did not ask anything, of course.)
Quite professional, I think.
All the more as, for the time being, I must be one of their smallest client (size of each trade < 1 EUR.USD contract).
What are the opinions on LMAX? Any futures.io (formerly BMT) traders use them? Are they good?
I'm demo-trading them now through MultiCharts, thanks to @Nicolas11 for bringing them to my attention, and it seems impressive. For my location, the data feed is quicker than the one from MB Trading.
However, I've recently had some periods on EUR/USD with the demo-feed that the price didn't fluctuate for a couple of minutes, while both the European and American session were open. I contacted them about this oddity, and they said:
Which I found a little disappointing since now I still don't know whether they are a quick, competent broker with good data feed. And while their spread is good, its apparently the bid/ask from their market maker bot and thus not reflective of their real trading conditions.
I funded my account last week via local AUD bank deposit to JP Morgan Sydney. Transfer happened overnight and shortly after London Open next day the funds were credited to my LMAX account ready for trading.
@fibfisherman - fyi if you open your account with base currency as AUD you can do a local bank-to-bank transfer within Australia. Makes deposits and withdrawals piss easy with overnight transfer and no wire transfer fees at either bank.
Very impressed that even though I just have a Classic account, they have appointed a dedicated account manager based here in Australia to deal with any issues I might have. Good job by LMAX in this regard.
As for trading
- I am using Multicharts .net x64.
- No issues with connecting or importing all available instruments or historical data into MC
- Easy to scale in & out of a position with $10,000 standard lot and pro-rata commission.
- Spreads are excellent.
I see that their sitting orders are not $1000 micro lots and are proper market maker quotes. For example right on my DOM I can see $1 million order on the bid and $3.5 million on the offer. That should be more than enough to fill any conceivable market order you send their way.
Some brokers like MB Trading will show you a price and then when you send in a order, the price has to be re-confirmed by sending your order to their liquidity provider for execution. Which means there is huge potential for slippage. LMAX does not send your order anywhere, it will just execute on the spot.
PS: @Nicolas11 Thanks mate for an excellent OP. Lots of useful information in there.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Traderji, much appreciated.
I meant that, if their bid & ask prices on the demo feed are from their market maker bot, it's hard to determine if their actual live bid/ask spread is as good. But I take it from your reply their live spread is just as good (also shown by FX Intel).
It is difficult for me to understand why their demo prices would be different from their live prices.
Their market makers are not separately quoting the demo feed, are they?
It is possible that the demo feed encounters technical problem (freeze, speed) but... different spread?
I traded live EUR.USD with real money for about 3 weeks, and I have never noticed a problem with their spreads.
But it is some time ago.
I think that you have already noticed this link in one of the above message, but some statistics on their spread are available on their Website: Average Spreads . Of course, it is not third-party evaluation.
That's also something I don't understand. It doesn't seem logical to spend resources on developing such a thing.
Perhaps, when they referred to their 'market maker bot', I perhaps misunderstood them and might have meant their 'algorithm to determine at which price your fake demo trade is filled'. That would make sense to have such a thing, but to me a market maker is also someone who sets bid/ask prices and thus determines the spread. (I'll contact them further for some more clarification )
Ah, what a delight to have a support desk active during European hours. I got an email reply from them within 9 minutes (I contacted them at 8:31 Central European Time).
I found their demo to be pretty worthless for anything other than a very quick test of Multicharts automated bracket orders, etc for the following reasons:
- Orders simply fill without price going anywhere near your order
- the data is not a true reflection of the live data and includes bad data with huge spikes etc
- if you try to trade for a few days in demo it logs you out you after an undisclosed period before allowing further logins to the demo environment
So, that is disappointing in that the demo is not useful for getting a taste of live trading or if you want to practice trading with no risk for an extended period.
That said I have found the live environment to be excellent with very low spreads across the board. I get filled instantly every time and actually have less slippage in the most liquid pairs like EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY than I do with CME futures as the spread is often less than 1 pip - averages 0.4 for EUR/USD.
Also, I think that the ability to trade micro lots with 10c per pip risk is very valuable to the learning trader where you can be trading live but with close to zero risk compared to futures and scale up slowly to mini, full and eventually multiple lots when you're ready. This to me is a huge advantage over say trading for 6 months or years on sim and then all of a sudden going to $12.50 per pip risk on 6e or $25.00 per pip if you want the ability to scale - which is VERY important IMO.
I do have some issues with the LMAX branded multicharts with memory where it simply runs out after a few days and locks up my VPS unless I do a reboot to flush the memory.
For that reason I am considering purchasing the normal Multicharts x64 edition so that I can avoid this issue and trade with multiple brokers from the single Multicharts as well.
(size of each trade < 1 EUR.USD 
