What types of trading firms is LMAX Exchange providing FX data for?
LMAX Exchange provides FX data to a diverse range of firms across the financial ecosystem. Banks and financial institutions use it for pricing, liquidity management, execution and trade monitoring, while proprietary trading firms rely on our firm, high-quality data for algorithmic and high-frequency trading. Hedge funds leverage LMAX Exchange’s real-time and historical FX data for strategy development, execution and risk management, while retail brokers and liquidity providers redistribute it to enhance execution quality for retail clients. With institutional-grade, no-last-look FX data, LMAX Exchange supports a wide range of clients, each using it to power their trading and investment strategies.
Please give us some examples of the range of applications that your market data is being used for.
Our data is used in various ways across the trading ecosystem and is a trusted benchmark for pricing comparisons and execution quality assessments.
Firms rely on it to develop and refine quantitative trading strategies, from arbitrage and high-frequency trading to AI-driven models. Data scientists and fintech firms incorporate it into predictive models for market forecasting and automated trading, while brokers use it to improve execution quality for retail clients. Quant researchers use our historical data for back testing, validating and optimising their strategies. Risk managers monitor market conditions, adjust hedging strategies, and detect price anomalies, while transaction cost analysis teams evaluate trading costs, measure slippage, and refine execution.
In what sort of ways does the granularity of LMAX Exchange’s data empower traders?
We provide full visibility into market liquidity, giving traders access to depth of market (DOM) data. This enables them to see where large orders sit and how the market absorbs volume. With up to 1,000 price updates per second, traders can track liquidity shifts in real time and refine their strategies accordingly. Market makers and liquidity providers can also adjust bid/ask spreads dynamically based on real-time order book depth. Additionally, our historical data offers the same level of granularity, providing valuable insights into flow volumes across various use cases.
What about market impact? What role does LMAX Exchange’s data play in managing that?
LMAX Exchange’s data plays a critical role in managing market impact by providing anonymised and aggregated data from the Central Limit Order Book, including “firm” liquidity order book depth. This allows traders to view and analyse liquidity pockets, helping them execute large orders with minimal price impact or slippage.
By understanding where liquidity is concentrated, traders can make more informed decisions to minimise their effect on market prices.
What makes LMAX’s ultra-fast FX market data so unique in the marketplace?
Our ultra-fast FX market data is unique due to direct access to our ‘firm’ and ‘executable’ limit order book liquidity data, which is updated at a frequency of 1,000 price updates per second (1ms). This high-speed access is available to all clients, regardless of their size, providing them with an unparalleled ability to execute trades and respond to market changes in real-time. This combination of speed, transparency, and accessibility sets LMAX Exchange data apart in the marketplace.
How have you leveraged state-of-the-art technology to deliver the millisecond performance required?
We leverage our proprietary technology and global infrastructure to deliver the millisecond performance required. With matching engines located in key global trading hubs – London (LD4), New York (NY4), Tokyo (TY3), and Singapore (SG1) – we ensure low-latency access for our clients worldwide. Our industry-leading technology is recognised for its high capacity, robustness, and ability to deliver ultra-fast performance, achieving internal exchange latency of less than 50 µs. Additionally, we maintain a 100% exchange uptime and implement platform releases every two weeks to continuously enhance performance and innovation.
Currency markets manifest price moves around event dates much more quickly than in equities. In what ways does high frequency LMAX Exchange order book data, which provides insights into prices and trading volumes at a microsecond level, fill a key gap in the pricing dynamics of currency pairs immediately preceding and succeeding events dates?
Our order book data provides insights into prices and trading volumes at the microsecond level, playing a crucial role in capturing the rapid price movements that occur around key events in the currency markets. By leveraging historical data, we’ve run models that generate predictive insights. For example, price declines in EUR/USD greater than 2bps within 0.05 seconds are strong indicators of Hawkish Fed outcomes. Trades placed on such price moves can capture, on average, 85-95% of the subsequent EUR/USD decline within the next hour. Our analysis shows that sub-second price action contains valuable insights that enable traders to capitalise on key monetary events.
How would you summarise the key benefits of your real-time and historic FX data and how can clients access it?
LMAX Exchange’s firm and executable real-time FX data supports a variety of applications, including algorithmic trading, predictive market forecasting, and improved execution quality. Our historical FX data offers valuable insights for refining strategies, providing clients with access to timestamped data, trade direction (buy/sell), volume, and traded price dating back to 2019. This combination of real-time and historical data helps clients make more informed trading decisions and optimise their strategies.
Our data is accessible to all clients, regardless of size, through multiple connectivity options via FIX (4.2/4.4) or REST APIs, and we also support a range of additional connectivity solutions to ensure seamless integration.