I have recently signed up with LMAX and today placed my first live trade. The review here is my opinion on the service thus far. It might change in the future the longer I am with them but for now this is what it is:
• Opening the account was easy.
• The LMAX web interface is very simple and very easy to use. Just the way I like it, no bells or whistles.
• Getting in touch with them is very easy. You can phone them anytime, or use the online chat. I have used the online chat probably 7 times now and each time I was connected and talking to someone in less than a minute.
• I have also emailed questions to the tech support which were efficiently answered/resolved.
• Support staff are knowledgeable and helpful.
• Trade execution/fill is instant. As soon as I entered my trade it showed up on the LMAX trading interface.
• The spread that LMAX offer on Gold is still something I cannot get over. European session it averages between 4 – 10 ticks! When the mericans come online it frequently gets to zero! No kidding, check it out for yourself. I recorded the spread through the last NFP and the worst I saw it get to was still less than 50. For those of you trading spot Gold you will know that most brokers average around 40-60 on a good day.
• The charting they offer is a really beautiful piece of software. They use it-finance.com charting and I must say that I was very impressed. Very clean, simple package developed in Java. For those of you that like fancy looking charts then you have a good selection of indicators to use. You cannot trade off of the charts though.
• Configuring LMAX to work with Sierra is pretty straight forward. The only thing is that Sierra quantity of 10 = LMAX quantity of 1.
• The swap rates seem higher than normal so the 'edge' you get with lower spread will be eroded somewhat if you intend holding longer term.
All in all, I’m pretty happy so far. I was sceptical of LMAX at first (maybe because the ceo’s face annoys me - but thats no reason is it?) but so far so good.
Cheers and good luck.
The following 3 users say Thank You to Grantx for this post:
"The LMAX Exchange order book is driven only by streaming limit-orders from top tier banks and proprietary trading firms, ensuring that true transaction costs are known."
So the liquidity pool is deep and LMAX is an ECN. Important to know when the arse drops out of a market e.g. CHF so you're going to get a decent execution on the real market and not a synthetic broker one which all the bucket shops use.
Ive been live trading with them for a few weeks now and order fills are instantaneous. Worst slippage so far on a stop out has been 2 ticks.
Something else I was unaware was possible with forex is the ability to see liquidity.
i think you would need two brokers. one for spot and one for futures. they are entirely different beasts. not sure about which retail platforms combine this. i dont use retail software.
LMAX is highly regarded as a forex broker though.
The following 2 users say Thank You to LukePoga for this post:
I hate metatrader with a passion, it has crashed 3x in 2 months removing 2 days work of trendlines and zones in the process. I cant risk my livelyhood on a platform that is so unstable and heavy on the cpu, I have a new i5 computer and it sounds like its about to takoff and fly away.
It is possible you have a bad indicator or plugin that is overloading the platform? Might be worth investigating before having to jump into a whole new platform. In my experience a new platform jump introduces loads of new (and unseen) problems that will take time to test and iron out.
The following user says Thank You to amoeba for this post:
The slowing down is an indicator issue, but I know plenty people that use the same setup as me and have no problems, I've even tried it on 2 different brokers. I figure since I want to explore Futures anyway now is a good time to get used to a platform that supports both.
Sierra chart use both FIX protocol and Java/.Net and when you dont use FIX protocol connection minimum deposit is 5000. Sierra chart has also on their site that dont use FIX protocol connection (It is not recommended to use the direct FIX connection that Sierra Chart also supports. This does not support what is described in the above paragraph and has a 300 USD/month fee from LMAX if the monthly minimums are not met with trading volume).
this is from one IB of LMAX regarding api requirements https://fxmtf.com/trading-platforms/api-trading/
You mentioned your broker does have cPanel? That's a great platform. Also it has a fix protocal you can activate to trade via FIX. Which means you can also link your Sierra chart to maybe.
