Pros & cons of LMFX

LMFX Fact sheet

When it comes to choosing your financial service provider, the most important aspect is trustworthiness. But how can you tell whether you can trust your broker or not? The best indication is the level of regulatory bodies that provide oversight. LMFX is not regulated by any financial institution, and this means that there’s very little reason to trust this broker. 

Despite the welcome bonuses and trading contests they offer, these do not help to raise trust. You will never see contests from well-regulated brokers as this behavior is related to gambling. Trading is not gambling, and with low regulations to govern this, inexperienced traders can very easily start losing funds. Even professional traders find it hard to keep discipline when trading and the added emotions that come from entering competitions and the like can cause overexcitement and emotional trading. Encouraging traders to place as many orders as possible to win a contest is not a way to build a reputation.

There are 105 assets for trading with this broker, including Forex, commodities, indices, and shares as CFDs. There are no cryptocurrencies or physical shares available and the number of assets is limited. All the asset types are CFDs. CFD trading is great in case you are looking for short to medium-term speculating opportunities. For investing long-term, physical assets such as physical shares, precious metals, and physical crypto tokens are a better option. Let’s discuss each asset class offered by this broker in more detail.

Forex trading on LMFX

There are 48 available Forex pairs for trading with LMFX. Available leverage for trading currencies is up to 1000:1. However, choosing high leverage can be very dangerous to novice traders. Leverage helps traders to increase their purchasing power, and when a trade goes according to plan, high leverage can serve as a great tool to increase your trading balance dramatically. However, if the price goes against predictions, oversized positions will quickly decrease the balance. For this simple reason, leverage is often referred to as a double-edged sword in trading. When it comes to Forex trading fees, the fees are average and the fees depend on the type of account you pick. Premium and Fixed account holders do not pay any commissions, however, spread markups start from 1 pip. On the Zero account, there are no spread markups, but traders pay 4 USD in commissions per lot, per side. 

Stock CFD trading on LMFX

There are 36 available stocks as CFDs for trading. Traders get access to the NYSE, NASDAQ, and LSE financial exchanges. Trading fees start from as low as 1 cent per share. Trading shares as CFDs have its benefits and drawbacks compared to physical stock trading. When trading CFDs, you can use leverage to increase your purchasing power and the asset type is more liquid as more people are trading CFDs. Moreover, traders can trade in both bullish and bearish markets, while physical assets can only be profitable when traders buy low and sell high. Since CFDs are just “Contracts For Difference”, speculators can short the assets. In addition, there are fewer barriers to entry. On the downside, CFDs are not as good as physical assets for long-term investing.

With LMFX, traders can speculate on some of the most popular company stocks:

• American Express
• Bank Of America
• Boeing Co
• Chevron Corp
• Coca Cola Inc.
• General Electric
• Goldman Sachs
• Amazon
• APPLE
• Cisco Systems
• eBay
• FaceBook Inc
• Google
• Illumina Inc, etc.

Commodity CFD trading on LMFX

Commodities are raw materials that are mined or grown. Commodity prices depend on global supply and demand. Trading fees on commodities with LMFX start from as low as 0.006 and there are both soft and hard commodities available for trading. The list includes:

• Coffee
• Copper
• Palladium
• Platinum
• Sugar
• XAG/EUR
• XAG/USD
• XAU/EUR
• XAU/USD
• UK/OIL
• US/OIL
• NGAS

Indices trading on LMFX

There are 9 available indices of global companies available for trading. Indices are great for analyzing the performance of certain industries and economies. In addition, they can be traded as CFDs. Trading fees on Indices are as low as 0.5 with this broker. When trading indices, there are also commissions of 2 USD per lot traded round-turn. Available assets include:

• AUS 200
• FRA 40
• GER 40
• SPA 35
• USD Index
• UK 100
• USA 100
• USA 30
• USA 500

There are many types of traders, and depending on their style, they have their preferences when it comes to trading accounts. High-frequency traders, intraday traders, scalpers, and news traders that place many traders per day prefer accounts that have zero spreads and agree to pay larger commissions. On the other hand, position traders that make fewer trades and spend more time on planning, prefer zero-commission accounts. In order to meet the needs of different traders LMFX provides three account types: Premium, Fixed, and Zero accounts. Let’s discuss each in more detail to find out what they offer. 

Pros & cons of LMFX account types

LMFX Demo Account

LMFX offers free Demo accounts, which are opened in MetaTrader 4 (MT4). Demo trading is vital for developing basic trading understanding as in demo environments there is no risk of losing money. Funds are virtual and the charts and platforms display live data. 

LMFX Premium Account

The Premium account has the lowest barriers to entry. Traders can open accounts using as low as 50 USD. The minimum deposit for topping up your account is 25 USD and spreads start from 1 pip on the Premium account. On the upside, there are no commissions. A margin call happens at 50% and Stop Out orders activate at 20%. This account type also offers the biggest available leverage of 1000:1.

LMFX Fixed Account

Fixed account holders have fixed spreads and zero commissions. Available leverage is up to 400:1, with the minimum initial deposit required to open this account being 250 USD. The minimum reload deposit amount is 50 USD. Margin call emails are sent at 30% and Stop Out orders are activated at 15%. The Fixed and Premium accounts are for position traders.

LMFX Zero Account

The Zero account offers 0 spreads. On the other hand, there’s a 4 USD commission per lot per side. The Zero account type is best for intraday traders that place a large number of orders. Usually, low spreads are more important for high-frequency traders than low commissions. In order to open this account type, a minimum initial deposit of 100 USD is required. Available leverage is lower than with the other account types, and only goes up to 250:1. The margin call level is 30%, and Stop Out orders get activated at 15%. 

Getting started on LMFX – Main steps

In case you have decided to open a trading account with LMFX, we’ll guide you through the entire process in detail. The whole process is entirely digital and the broker provides an easy-to-navigate web page that is available in 5 languages. 

Step 1: Open an account

The first step you need to take is to open the broker’s home page. You will be able to see the “Open Live Account” button in the top-right corner in green. By clicking the button, you’ll be transferred to the registration form page. All you need to do is to follow the process and fill in your personal information.

Step 2: Time to verify your account

After the registration is completed, it’s time for verification. In order to verify your account, you need to upload proof of your identity document, such as a photo of your driving license, passport, or ID card. For proof of residence, you can use a bank statement or utility bill. 

Step 3: Make your deposit and start trading

After the verification is completed, the final step is depositing funds and trading. Available funding options are Visa, Mastercard, bank transfer, Neteller, Skrill, FasaPay, and PayRedeem. Online banking and credit card options are instant, however, other methods may take up to 3 business days. 

Fees and commissions of LMFX are average. There are no inactivity fees and fees on deposits and withdrawals. Now, let’s compare LMFX’s fees with other brokers to get a clear idea of how the broker's fee policies work. For the comparison, we picked the Premium account that has no commissions but uses spreads starting from 1 pip. 

Comparing LMFX fees with other brokers

LMFX fees compared to Interactive Brokers fees

*Inactivity fee was eliminated by IB in 2021, it used to be $20/m

LMFX fees compared to eToro fees

LMFX fees compared to IG fees

LMFX fees compared to XM fees

LMFX fees compared to AvaTrade fees

LMFX fees compared to Capital.com fees

There’s only MetaTrader 4 (MT4) available with this broker. MetaTrader 4 was released in 2005 and quickly became wildly popular among FX traders the world over. The platform remains highly popular to this day due to its reliability. The platform is offered by the vast majority of other brokers as well as it can be installed on even low-end and old computers and run on phones as well. In addition, MT4 enables you to automate trading using bots called Expert Advisors (EAs). 

There’s the MetaTrader 4 trading app available for mobile trading. The platform is fully capable of executing various order types and traders get access to live trading charts. At this point, the app is only available for Android users and unfortunately, Apple devices are not able to download this platform from the store. The mobile app is useful in numerous ways. Traders can use mobiles as insurance for trading in emergency situations such as power outages or internet failures. Traders might forget to place a stop-loss or take-profit order which can be quickly remedied through the mobile app. However, it’s recommended to use mobile apps as insurance tools and not as your main trading platform. 

Quality education is essential for any trader. LMFX offers an economic calendar and trade calculators. However, there are no daily analyses, webinars, or seminars available. Overall, the research tools are very limited. 

Customer support with this broker is good and we found little issue in getting questions answered. There are phone, email, and online chat options available, all of which seem to work fairly well. The web page is also available in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese. 

To sum everything up, LMFX is not regulated which is a major warning sign even though some believe that there are opportunities to be had, such as high leverage and promotions. That being said, we believe that it’s better to trade with a regulated broker. Trading fees are average and available leverage is up to 1000:1. Sadly the trading platforms on offer are limited to only MT4 and their education section leaves much to be desired. Customer support seemed all right, but overall we were not too impressed with the broker.