LMAX Exchange Trading Condition: FOREX - Indices' CFDs, Commodities and Cryptocurrencies
Updated on January, 9th 2023
Orders
In addition to regular orders valid only for the day, multiday orders can be entered valid 'til cancelled.
Stop-loss order are valid 'til cancelled, with the possibility to indicate an optional limit price.
OCO orders are also available starting from September 10th 2014.
Market Time
Refer to Info and Market Times for more details.
All currency pairs will end trading on Friday at 23:00 CET (day change) and will resume trading on Sunday at 23:05.
Exceptions concerning the New Zealand dollar and the Russian ruble are:
- The three pairs of currencies in which there is the New Zealand dollar (EUR/NZD, AUD/NZD and NZD/USD), makes the day change from Monday to Thursday between 19:00 and 21:00, depending on the time now in force (summer or winter), with a cancellation of all orders placed or already in negotiation, except conditional and multiday orders.
- The two pairs of currencies in which there is Russian rublo (EUR/RUB and USD/RUB) are tradable from 8:30 to 23:00
Exchange Rate
For the calculation of debits and credits, Directa will apply the value of the euro exchange rate (BID/ASK) as communicated daily by LMAX Exchange, and also as found in the table available on the trading website.
Margin
All margins are requested and maintained in Euro. They usually remain unchanged while the position is open.
Occasional changes in margins are reported with few days notice ahead of time on directatrading.com
A fixed margin is currently requested for contracts with a notional value of 1,000 (E.g. 20 euros for EUR/USD, 50 euros for EUR/MXN, 150 euros for USD/SGD).
The margin requirements are withdrawn from the trading account and simply held as collateral by Directa, with value date "T+1",
upon the opening of the position. The same amount will be returned, with the value date of "T+1", when the position is closed, without any Profit or Loss generated by the trade, that will be calculated separately for each derivative instrument.
Margin requirements for each available derivative instrument.
Profit and Loss
Profit and Loss are generated by the change occurred between the opening and closing price of the trade.
The corresponding amounts are converted in Euro, initially at the "previsional" exchange rate and then at the "final" official rate.
Price Adjustment'''
Price Adjustment is necessary for overnight positions and it's determined by the official closing price published daily by the LMAX Exchange.
Price Adjustment is calculated and converted in Euro at the provisional exchange rate of the following day, before trading starts.
For overnight positions at the beginning of each trading day Directa will cancel the last Price Adjustment and it will contextually debit/credit the updated Price Adjustment.
When the position will be closed, Directa will cancel the last Price Adjustment and it will contextually debit/credit the total Profit & Loss, calculated as the difference between the trade opening and closing price. The net P&L (excluding commissions) will be used for Tax purposes where applicable.
Interest
On overnight positions, an interest will be debited/credited (interest swap for currencies and commodities) on the trading account, please refer to the table available on the web trading platform under INFO -->3b
For cryptocurrencies, the interests are always be debited.
Charts
Charts are based upon the average between best bid and best ask in the order book, and not upon the price of executed trades: therefore it may happen that on the chart it is shown a minimum higher than a buy price and a maximum lower than a sell price respectively.
Market Data
Real-time currency market data (book with 5 levels depth) is available for Directa’s customers completely free of charge.
Dividends
For some of these stocks dividend payment is expected, which will be automatically credited in case of long positions and debited in case of short positions. The dividend amount shown in the table refers to a single contract.
Automatic stop loss
Pursuant to the Decision (EU) 2018/796 of May 22, 2018, issued by ESMA (the European Authority for Financial Instruments and Markets) with regard to the new measure of protection against losses exceeding 50% of the amount invested in CFDs , which results in the closing of positions upon exceeding of such threshold (margin close-out protection), we have introduced a security by security protection mechanism.
That mechanism is curried out by placing an automatic and non-revocable "at the market" stop-loss order, with trigger price equal to the price -50% of total value in euros of what was previously paid for the opening of the same positions.
Under conditions of high volatility, any orders entered to mediate the average traded price could be executed at the same time as the stop-loss described above and, consequently, the objective for which the orders are finalised would not be achieved.
CFD Risk warning (ESMA regulation)
In compliance with the Decision (EU) 2018/796 of May 22, 2018, issued by ESMA (the European Authority for Financial Instruments and Markets) we remind you that:
- CFDs are complex financial instruments and entail a high risk of monetary losses, even in short periods of times, due to their leverage effect
- trading in CFDs can result in a losses of up to 77.20% * for retail investors who operate with Directa
(*) economic result produced only on CFD =
more gain, less incurred losses,
+/- interest and dividends,
less gain more non-incurred losses on 31/12/2021,
more gain, less non-incurred losses on 31/12/2022.
For comparability with other operators, the figure is gross of withholding taxes. If these are considered (for customers in "administered regime") the percentage is 77.72%