LMAX and Fastbrokers

I've posted before about LMAX and my belief that this could be a very good exchange if they got their act together and provided their users with a proper interface which took advantage of their USP.

Anyway, it seems some of their management has changed and although they still have their own crap interface, they are also available on Fastbroker's Pathfinder multiplatform software. This has a lovely DOM interface which I love and though they dont currently have many developers producing goodies using their API, for all you coders out there, you have a great opportunity to get in on a pretty wide open market if you want to.

The caveat however is that, although they give you the use of Pathfinder for free, the commission of $3.09 per contract per end means the advantages are blown out of the window by the high cost.

Because of the ease of placing trades, things like spreads are essentially meaningless (but if you want to trade at market all the time, the spreads are probably lower than anywhere) but the $6.18 round trip per contract is, in my opinion, a high price to pay.

Why on earth Betfair didnt just open their equivalent for FX, stocks and commodities and offer an interface like Gruss or BetAngel, and take 5% comm, I'll never know. Seems to me some people just can't see the wood for the trees.

Thinking further about the cost of commission (irrespective of the broker you use), please correct me if my maths is rubbish.

The Fastbrokers comm is approx $3 per lot (5% higher than my MBT account), or 3 pips for each trade, therefore for a round trip I'm effectively paying 6 pips. Now my trades make on average, say, 30 pips (though there are of course around 20% losing trades too), so the 6 pips could be considered 20% commission (not taking the losing trades into account), or 30% comm nett (taking losing trades of equal pip size into account).

That's high and means you need a pretty good edge over an already extremely efficient market.

0.3 pip

Agreed. Yes, starting to look like good value LOL.

Blimey should I be trading FX making calculations like that ?

You should be 'learning' FX using calcs like that. No shame in making mistakes... so long as you're learning from them and making a point not to repeat them.

Oh, I realise I'm learning all the time but that was a stupid mistake of mine and very unlike me. Still, onwards and upwards. I also managed to make a nice trade on the GBP CPI today too
And I'm warming to the Pathfinder interface. Shame there aren't more developers though.

And what's wrong with Multicharts anyways? It's free with LMAX.

Not free. You have to trade 250 contracts per month otherwise its $60 per month

There is no free lunch... if you want more, you are going to pay... one way or another.

I know, I just think that 250 contracts shouldnt be that much of a problem as daytrader if you already got >$2500 for an account with fastbrokers.

I was fond of taking a look at their api, however, the procedure to get "hold of" it is too cumbersome (e.g. having to ask them, fill out paperwork and what not - other brokers publish their api specs free for download).

So is fast brokers more expensive than lmax ?

Just a tad more expensive but insignificant. I really like the Pathfinder interface and their DOM is extremely intuitive and easy to use. Much more so than Multicharts. I've had a rather lacklustre response from support however when asking about their plugins, none of which seem to work in trial mode. They say they need activating but dont appear to be on the case at all. Not impressive support.

Nope, they charge the same commissions LMAX does, but they give you the platform for free with no volume requirements.

Problem is that they don't offer native stops like LMAX does

They actually support them since releasing the latest software release:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...69#post5882969

Nice !

Dear Sir/Madam
I am a broker of LMAX.In 2014, LMAX Sales Representative(qilin.wang) Deducted $2492.53 from My business commission by Threaten me to cancel my business qualification.I think it is not reasonable.So i want to put $2492.53 back,Can you help me? Some evidence in the attachments inside.thank you !Yours sincerely
Baojun qiao
2015-01-14

As I advised you in the other thread http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=521668 before, you need to contact LMAX Head Office in England to resolve this.

thank you!