looking to fund my account but cant decide between these two brokers
Alpari has MT5 which is an ecn account great spreads & execution
Heard that lmax is even better with lower spreads and faster execution speeds
cant decide between these two brokers, any help ?
Did you try demo ?
Also find the customer comments on the brokers
They are both well known companies.
In the UK, there are 4 brokers that offer true ECN.
Everyone else will STP your business but very unlikely your trades will be sent to a bank.
They will either dilute their ECN with their retail/market maker flow and divert your trades to be b-booked or will execute with a one of their counterparty brokers.
So it’s down to what you are looking for in a broker. Testing a demo account will help you with learning the functionality of the platform but it will not give a true reflection of the broker and their system/pricing/execution/etc.
I’ve never heard of IMAX and I can’t even find them on a google search!
Hey Goldenmember, its L Max with an L. Any luck?
Both brokers are good, but there are many other good brokers out there. You may want to check an independent brokers reviews sites that are unbiased.
Yes it is with an L, the only way I found them was through word of mouth and a google search,
Their platform is great and their interactive charts are lovely, spreads are variable but very low
eg euro/ usd 0.4-0.8
Oh, I’ve heard of LMAX. Supposedly a very good broker with massive liquidity. I think both choices are very good for a broker.
Having the choice of those two, LMAX is the obvious choice for all the right reasons but you need to have $10K to start with.
100K is better tho.
LMAX is better for brokerages but not so good for individual traders. Their liquidity pool is good (a few banks and lots of market maker brokers provide pricing into the so-called exchange).
I would probably stick to MT4, MT5 is still crappy. Alpari isn’t a real ECN, still a market maker broker.
Guys, you need to be realistic. If you want to make big money in the financial sector then you need to put in big money.
You wouldn’t get far trying to put in $1000 into property would you? Same applies here too.
I had a look at MT5 and it seems to be pretty fast to me - whats wrong with it?
Bugs!
MT4 is too established (brokers have paid small fortunes to customise their MT4, pay again for MT5? hmmm)
That is why most brokers still use MT4. Plus the lack of backward compatibility with MT4 is not good (add-ons etc). Metaquotes has a long way to go before MT5 takes over. But the transition will happen in the future. Hopefully before MT6 arrives. There are some features missing too.
However MT5 does integrate with ECN models whereas MT4 has to be programmed.
I will always tell people to stick to the ‘tried and tested’ and not be a guinea pig.
I thought Alpari over the last year or so has changed to a ECN/NDD business model.(even says in the broker section on here)
I agree with your second comment 100%
I forgot to add, more importantly that I have an Lmax account so yeah I am bias towards them and I like using Multicharts.
I have tried Alpari MT5 only in demo and it seems all right to me, better features than MT4 which is ancient but I manual trade most the time so I don’t need ea’s or whatever.
To the OP either broker would be fine but I would go with Lmax.
Be quick though before someone comes on her recommending a broker from the Seychelles or Russia and saying how great they are to trade with:p
Ah, you are one of those biased ones 
So cams75, explain why LMax’s spreads have gone from 0.2 on EURUSD to 0.7 (up to 0.9) since the start of the week?
The spread is only 0.5 on EUR/USD at the moment.
Maybe you can enlighten us in all your wisdom who is a better broker than an actual exchange?
So it’s finally come down slightly.
They are not really an actual exchange like NASDAQ or NYSE. They are a broker that have obtained a licence to run their exchange-like model. In my opinion, they are a place for brokers to do liquidity swaps. Have you visited their offices in West London (I have), so I know their operations. Most people still don’t know exactly how they’re model works.
If they were an actual exchange that was going to be the next NASDAQ and they’re that great, where are Betfair and Goldman Sachs?
Maybe there are brokers on the ‘exchange’ that are manipulating the prices; putting in limit orders and then pulling them out?