LMAX = revolution?!?

entheos,

I don't have this spike ...

LMAX does allow news trading. You can find brokers with cheaper commissions but LMAX has great speed, reliability and your money is safe - there are a host of other reasons they are good but everyone should do their own research/comparison and go with whichever broker is right for them.

Thanks for the reply Messiah01 as I was wondering a bit about why they wouldn't allow traders to trade the news. Seemed a tad strange given their model.

For people in Canada, who were hoping to open an FX account in the U.K. (or just Canada for Albertans), you might be able to do so if you become a 'registered' Exempt Market Dealer. I was speaking with a person over at the Alberta Securities Commission on Friday, and he said that you need to be an accredited investor to trade spot FX if you live in Alberta (and that brokerage needs to be registered here as well) and same for if you are Canadian and what to open an account in the U.K. To be an acc. investor you have to have income of over 200k CAD for the last two years and if at any year you fall under the threshold, you lose acc. investor status.

However, if you do the Exempt Market Products Course, this registers you as a licensed dealer meaning that you are now able to sell Exempt Market Products, and you are now, and for the rest of your life, an accredited investor. Pain in the arse to jump through this loophole, but c'est la vie!

Course cost is $500 CAD, but looks pretty easy and all you need is 60% to pass a multiple choice exam. If you're already in the industry, then you probably will barely need to study. I am going to write the exam on this Sept 27 and will post back with thoughts on the exam, but again, I imagine it will be a cake walk.

So there you go fellow canucks, this is how you become eligible to open accounts in the U.K. and in Canada if your province is a friggin' Nanny state like Alberta.

Hi, I've got a bunch of LMAX-related questions. Would be great if anyone can take a stab at any of them... especially since it's the weekend so it's hard to get answers from the brokers until monday

1. Anyone know what the max. leverage is on armada/lmax for GBP/JPY? I know site says 500:1 but I ask because most other LMAX brokers I see write 100:1 on majors (and don't mention about crosses)
2. Is it possible to use Multicharts through Armada?
3. What brokers can I use LMAX with Multicharts?
4. Does anyone know when an LMAX broker writes 100:1 on majors, does that mean 100:1 on GBP/JPY too? or less than that?
5. Are commissions of other LMAX brokers similar to Armada? ($4 RT)? or higher? I really am not a fan of MT4
6. Are spreads of other LMAX brokers as tight as Armada's?

Ok. I had some questions for LMAX, and they responded the next day (although I did email them well after London closed,so very quick response time as they answered once London was open the next morning).

Here are the questions and answers. In the case of Answer A and Answer B, this is because two people offered answers as one person had forwarded my email to someone due to being in the office late and wanting to get answers to me quickly. So a big thumbs up on professionalism here! A quick note, but for some reason the numbers for the questions all show up as 1. I have no idea why since I just copied and pasted the answers...:


Questions:

1. Do you have a minimum guaranteed liquidity for TOB prices (i.e. guaranteed min. of $1mm) as from your website, TOB looks pretty thin with amounts as low as 100k, so I'm assuming that perhaps I have misinterpreted the data as I'm used to seeing $ amounts for DOM rather than number of contracts...

Answer A) No as we operate an open order book, we cannot guarantee a minimum TOB liquidity although this is typically around 500k. 1 FX contract is equivalent to 10k notional base currency. We have a very deep order book and you will receive best execution on a VWAP basis if your requested order size exceeds TOB available quantity.
In relation to providing you the best view of our live pricing and liquidity, I have provided below access to our real-time order book widget which allows the user to visualise the aggregated layers of the live Professional MTF order book on a real-time basis as well as check the VWAP based price/spread:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/l...dget-vwap.html

Answer B) We do not have minimum guaranteed liquidity for TOB prices. LMAX operates an exchange based model so liquidity is made up from a pool of liquidity providers and our clients themselves placing limit orders on to the order book.

1. How do you charge commissions as I heard (never saw myself) from an associate of one broker (*cough* FXCM Pro) saying they charge comms on overnight rolls as well, which is preposterous.

We do not charge commission on swaps.

1. On rolls, is there a LMAX fee levied upon the swap rate or do you pass through the whole amount to the client? Can you show me a list of your current (as of today) swaps and what your fee is if one?

Answer A) As far as I am aware, our swaps are fairly competitive compared with others in the same space. The actual rates you receive will depend on whether you are classified as retail status with funds held in a client trust segregated account or professional with title transfer of funds (allowing LMAX to place your funds with our Prime Broker). Once we establish this, I would be able to provide an example of the applicable rates.
Answer B) We pass on rates given to us from our prime broker and in addition to that, we charge a small admin fee. Please note that it is not our model to generate revenue from financing.

1. Can I trade forward contracts or just spot?

Spot only

1. If my account is denominated with its base ccy as CAD, how are any profits/losses, derived in other currencies, changed back to CAD? Is this done at the WM/Reuters closing rate for the nearest hour when profit/loss is booked? Do you levy a fee on these transactions or just translate price on the that rate?

Answer A) We do not currently offer CAD as a base currency option. In principle though, any non-base currency P&L is converted back to base just after close of business each night using LMAX’s closing price as the point of reference for the conversion.
Answer B) Profit/loss in any currency other than your base currency is changed back to your base currency each evening. LMAX closes for 5 minutes between 22:00-22:05 to perform a currency 'sweep' and your profit/loss is converted at the prevailing spot rate. We do not levy a fee on these transactions.

1. What are comms per mil based on monthly trading activity in the following volumes: 0-3 bn, 3-6bn, >6 bn

Answer A) This will depend on the platform you wish to use as MT4 bears an additional cost for LMAX to offer.
Answer B) Commissions will be $25 per $1 million notional value, on the opening and closing trade. Therefore $50 per round turn. Or 0.0025% of notional value. We do not charge commissions on overnight rolls.

1. Do you allow hedge trading (i.e.If currently long 1mm $/CAD, selling 1mm $/CAD will not close the long position but will open a new, separate position) or do you follow the NFA's FOREX anti-hedging rules of FIFO?

Answer A) We offer 2 platforms – our main exchange platform works on a net position basis (so no hedging) but we can also offer MT4 where hedging is possible.
Answer B) We do not allow hedge trading on our LMAX web platform, we do follow anti-hedging rules of FIFO.

1. In your trading terms and conditions, is there any point referring to the fact that client funds will become part of the company's unencumbered funds or anything alluding to the fact that client funds can leave segregated account for non-trade related activities?

This relates back to Point 3 as to how we categorise you. Typically, if you are a Permitted Client, you would be classified as Professional status – we can then either orientate this without title transfer (so your funds remain in a client trust seg account) or with title transfer (where we then have the flexibility to place your funds with BNP , our PB, as part of LMAX’s collateral to support open positions). We are only able to offer more aggressive swaps when clients agree to title transfer.

9. What bank are client funds held with and who are your auditors as well as how often are client accounts audited? Can you forward a copy of the most recent Auditor's report?
We are using Bank of America currently. LMAX’s books and records are audited as part of being an FCA regulated company and a UK entity but they are not specifically auditing our clients’ accounts.
See attached for our latest audited financials.

If you are Canadian, here is a doc with the definitions of a permitted client.

I've forgotten.. what is so "evil" about hedging that the Americans had to ban it?

Ok. So took the Exempt Market Products exam offered by IFSE on Sat Sept 27th. 100 multiple choice questions and took me about 1h 25m. Got a 78% and all I did was do the 15 questions at the back of each unit on the Friday night before the exam. I did quickly read sections where I was unfamiliar with regulations/tax stuff. I'd say I probably spent 2-3hrs in total studying but that being said, I did forget to do unit 6 on flow though shares and spent 15 mins reading it before the exam (yep, I'm an idiot! lol)... I also did fairly crappy on Unit 1, which I would have thought I would have aced, but some of the questions were surprisingly in-depth, so I'd rec.reading that unit for certain! So, if you're in the industry and familiar with a lot of the subject matter, it won't be difficult. If you aren't familiar with the stuff, I would highly suggest actually reading the units.

Moving on to thinking that I'd now be good to go with Interactive Brokers now permissioning me for spot FX trading. Well, that didn't happen. They wanted something from the ASC saying that they are good with this. So I called the guy at the ASC who I has spoken with before and who told me to do this as this was the work around. Turns out he left out the fact that you also need to do the Canadian Securities Course AND then get a job a company who is registered as an Exempt Market Dealer. After the company 'hiring' me, I would then apply at the ASC for registration as an Exempt Market Dealer after which I don't ever have to show up at that company that 'hired' me and can let my registration lapse after that, but for life I will now have Accredited Investor status.

The guy didn't mention all this bullshit when I originally spoke with him!!!!! Luckily, my buddy runs a company doing this and he'll help me out and 'hire' me,however, I am quite fortunate in this case and imagine that others that might try this route won't be so lucky. In the end, it is possible to skirt some of the ASC regulations, but not as easy as it originally sounded...

Sorry I can't answer all of your questions, but in regards to leverage, it, for the most part, seems to be around 100:1. I was looking at their platform today (not MT4) and it shows the amount of margin required to open a position and it seems to vary (from the ccys I looked at) from 1% to 1.5%.

As for Armada, I've never heard of them... A quick google brought up ski manufacturer and music...

In regards to the evil of hedging, I think it was because it seemed many traders were opening positions that only benefited the brokers in that they would try to 'hedge' away from calling the direction of a currency pair correctly and so would open a buy, for example, USD/CAD at 1.1002 and then immediately open a short USD/CAD at say 1.0999. So essentially the broker was making twice the spread as the client tired to 'hedge' their bets. I believe the NFA looked at this a shady practice on the brokers part for allowing traders to do this.

http://www.armadamarkets.com/why-armada/ they have tight spreads and go through LMAX

but I think no multicharts (

http://www.myfxbook.com/forex-broker-spreads

I am a LMAX IB. If you are interested: http:// bit.ly/1pLxXyK or drop me an e-mail.

Nowadays LMAX started stop hunting. Cheating broker.See the same feed by armada have no spike whereas LMAX has.

1. Armada has NOT the same feed as LMAX

2. Forex is an OTC Market. Any Broker can quote any price they want at any time. If you don't like this you should not trade forex

What he said

If you dont understand what you are doing perhaps you should find a better hobby! So tired of these "traders" On FF thinking that their brokers are out to rip them off when in fact it is the trader who has no idea

LMAX is very good, I like the concept of what they are trying to achieve.
The challenge for them is to get lots of brokers to sign up to use their exchange.

I like reading that document about how their architecture is implemented.. impressive stuff.

Yes its very impressive
I wonder how many traders trade indirectly through LMAX.

These Stupid idiots try to teach forex when we ask legi question. Feckers dont have any clue what they are talking.
A newbie try try to advise others in these broker advertised threads.

haha Just got to know this is a OTC market . you moron. Are you here to teach trader what they should do . Instead ask question at the broker. Broker can quote any price??. Then do u think you have an edge. Clean your shit head and try to find legit broker.

Lmax will not appreciate you business. That is being said to me with these words exactly.

Along the years I was Lmax partner, retail trader and corporate account holder.
no mater what hat I had with them, Lmax always reply with mannered hostility, throw responsibility back you, and show no appreciation for your business with them.

Maybe they are not the nicest people to work with, but same with the technology they provide. In summery lmax provide lowe technology service for traders, for partners (no back office) and for clients.

Their MT4 platform is by buggous bridge solution, unstable and very fragile.
their native platform is very basic GUI.

Lmax provide lower count of trading instrument, even lower on their MT4. where with MT4 they use extension .lmx which makes it difficult to load charts history onto your station.

Only advantage lmax is famous for is their low trading commissions, but one should note that swaps rate are relatively expensive then other brokers
After being proven again, again and again with the same symptoms along few years, I decided to stop my activity with this. For me low commissions are not worth low quality on everything else.