LMAX = revolution?!?

Hey Fellas

http://www.lmaxtrader.co.uk/why-lmax




could this be the revolution ?

there is a new broker out there LMAX wich actually is no broker at all ??

its an exchange like betfair where people meet up and there tardes get matched
talking about befair ? LMAX is run by betfair .. and betfair revolutionized the sports betting markets..


so is cfd and forex the next wich is undergoing a new revolution ?

waht do you guys think of it ?

cheerz

This is called ECN and already exists for quite some time.
Apart form this, too few information.

They meet up and their trades get matched?

Sounds like a bucketshop. Matching clients with clients.... Not taking liquidity from various sources, just local liquidity. Fills will be a huge issue.

I have been watching their pricing since the last week, fx does have pretty tight spreads. Especially gbp/usd, its mostly at 1.0 to 1.1 pips during euro/american hours. Not sure about their cfd products, of course its always cheaper to trade the future directly. You can just sign up online and have a look at the pricing, if you want to trade later, you have to send the paperwork.

Its like the other ECNs, with the exception that they are regulated as a so called MTF, which under european regulatory regime is something like a light-weight exchange. Means, they have to disclose who their members are (liquidity-providers, broker-members) and have to publish an exchange rulebook, contract specifications, and so on. They have central clearing via LCH.Clearnet too(means it removes any doubts about the broker being counterparty, also mitigates broker default risk). It works pretty much like a real futures exchange, like cme or eurex. See: http://mtf.lmax.com

At the moment they only have 3 liquidity providers (goldman, jpm and optiver) and one broker member. Hopefully they will add more later. Its backed by Goldman and the betfair people.

I think this approach adds real transparency, unlike other ecns who dont even publish their members, or official exchange rules. I still wont trade with them since at the moment they only offer accounts in GBP. Will keep an eye on this tho.

This looks VERY nice!! Too bad USA traders wont get to play.

What does MTF stand for ?

What's the minimum for a real account ?

Could you post a screenshot of the market depth for the EUR/USD ?

Any data on traded daily volume ?

How long they been in existence ?

Eurusd spread going up and down between 0.4 and 0.7 pip. This current time over 100 contracts are offered both sides and half a pip or down another 300 contracts.

That's 1 million (since the contracts are only worth 10K)with around 0.5 spread , not bad

You can sign up and look for yourself, it just takes a few minutes. Its certainly not as deep as a good currenex provider but i guess it can compete with the likes of alpari pro or pfg and such.

They only went live a few weeks ago, so probably not so many clients as of now, as well as volume traded. They dont disclose last traded price and qty like a real exchange.

I think no hard minimum, but obviously margin requirements need to be met.

Here is the wiki article about MTFs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multila...ading_Facility

Its essentially an ecn with additional regulation.

I think they should support EUR and USD accounts, have a tiered fee structure and bring in some more l.providers(especially for cfds), then maybe it can be quite good.

They plan to launch stocks next year, it will be a hybrid market where the real stocks and the corrresponding stock-cfd will trade on the same venue, and the cfd and the stock is supposedly fungible. Wonder how they will margin such a hybrid position.

No last look like on currenex and all the bucketshops

Executable prices at all times, including news times

And they offer an API, but quite an ugly one since the data comes in XML/JSON format (and no historic data?)..

Before you all get excited, they offer no "hedging". Not that I would use such a thing, but for some retail traders it's indispensable:

Also, the FX trading is closed each day between 22:00 and 22:30 GMT. What if North Korea bombs it's neighbor during this time? Just saying...

And good luck news trading here. From http://www.lmaxtrader.co.uk/pdf/Order-Execution-Policy.pdf :

In the event that the bid and ask prices of an instrument quoted on the MTF widen beyond the „trusted‟ range prescribed by the MTF, the MTF will not accept any new Orders until the affected bid and ask prices fall back to within the „trusted range‟.

This measure is deployed by the MTF with the aim of maintaining an orderly trading market.

Additionally whilst an Instrument is deemed to be „untrusted‟:

1. unmatched limit orders and contingent take profit orders already on the order book will remain on the order book and it will not be possible to change them (although it will still be possible to cancel them)
2. Stop loss Orders will not trigger until normal pricing resumes

Yes, half an hour down time is quite long for fx. Altho futures are down for an entire hour each day.

As for the trading halts, every exchange has something like this, and every exchanges names and operates this differently. Some name it volantility breaks (xetra), circuit breaker (nyse), cme has a protected trading range (sounds like the lmax thing is similar) and volatility bands, some futures products have limit up/down where everything is halted. Its for extraordinary circumstances, for example when there are no quotes in the market, or flash-crash type scenarios. Doubt this is applicable for your ordinary NFP or rates decision. Still, would be interesting how exactly this works for lmax.

ECN no different than anyone else honestly.

Anyone else having trouble getting onto their website?

Platform is ugly, charting is worse. This is a third-party platform I've seen rebranded at some bank trading websites (one of my banks has this same platform, charting is probably the worst I've ever seen).

Who cares ?

It is all about fair execution , no requotes, delayed execution,etc...the typical bucketshop games, this is exchange-like execution

Use MT4 scammers platform for charts

lol

Yes please
Hope this is how FX and CFD will be traded in the future

Death to the dodgy market makers

"The MTF model and centralised clearing provide the transparency and security that the retail market has always lacked and which clients, regulators and the market are looking for."

Technically speaking, they are just matching orders and people will be trading between themselves. To do this, they will need over 10,000 clients to really make good use of it. Otherwise, they will have to clear through banks.