One of the leading providers of no 'last look' multidealer    Liquidity   Liquidity Liquidity is at the core of every broker’s offering. It is a basic characteristic of every financial asset - be it a currency, stock, bond, commodity or real estate. The more liquid an asset is, the easier it is to sell and buy on the open market. Foreign exchange is considered to be the most liquid asset class.Brokers can source liquidity from a single or multiple source, thereby delivering to their clients enough market depth for their orders to get filled. The main characteristic of liquidity is its depth, which will determine how quickly and how big of an order can be executed via the trading platform.Understanding LiquidityLiquidity can be internal or external depending on the size and the book of the broker. Companies which are large enough and have material client flows consistently are creating their own liquidity pools from the order flow of their clients, thereby internalizing flows and saving on costs to send customer orders to the interbank market. By doing that however they are exposing themselves to carry the risk on the trade.Liquidity providers can be prime brokers, prime of primes, other brokers or the broker’s book itself. Traditionally brokers are split between internalizing flows and offloading trades of their clients to different liquidity providers.Generally, retail brokers and their clients prefer more liquid assets which lead to better fill rates and less slippage. When there is lack of liquidity on a certain market, slippage can occur - the order is executed at a price which is the closest available to the one requested by the client. Liquidity is at the core of every broker’s offering. It is a basic characteristic of every financial asset - be it a currency, stock, bond, commodity or real estate. The more liquid an asset is, the easier it is to sell and buy on the open market. Foreign exchange is considered to be the most liquid asset class.Brokers can source liquidity from a single or multiple source, thereby delivering to their clients enough market depth for their orders to get filled. The main characteristic of liquidity is its depth, which will determine how quickly and how big of an order can be executed via the trading platform.Understanding LiquidityLiquidity can be internal or external depending on the size and the book of the broker. Companies which are large enough and have material client flows consistently are creating their own liquidity pools from the order flow of their clients, thereby internalizing flows and saving on costs to send customer orders to the interbank market. By doing that however they are exposing themselves to carry the risk on the trade.Liquidity providers can be prime brokers, prime of primes, other brokers or the broker’s book itself. Traditionally brokers are split between internalizing flows and offloading trades of their clients to different liquidity providers.Generally, retail brokers and their clients prefer more liquid assets which lead to better fill rates and less slippage. When there is lack of liquidity on a certain market, slippage can occur - the order is executed at a price which is the closest available to the one requested by the client. Read this Term on the foreign exchange market, LMAX Exchange, has announced the launch of a matching engine in the Equinix IBX Data Centre in Tokyo (TY3). According to the company's announcement, the new matching engine will secure    Execution  Execution Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a common marketing point of emphasis by brokers, whose action execution varies considerably from company to company. When execution prices are not matching the submitted price the client is charged or credited the difference resulting from the negative or positive slippage.Slippage is a very contentious issue among retail traders, which can lead to issues. Many traders view levels of slippage at brokers as a key determinant for their business. Best Execution a Legal ObligationBrokers are required by law to diver to their clients the best execution possible. Some regulators are requiring brokers to submit execution stats in order to assess the quality of their services. Other brokers are regularly posting execution statistics in order to boost the confidence of their clients in the best execution commitment of the company.Best execution has been a point of emphasis in recent years from both retail and institutional players in the FX industry. Negotiating and executing transactions in order to promote a robust, fair, open, liquid and appropriately transparent FX market is identified as one of the six main principles outlined in the FX Global Code of Conduct, which came into effect in 2018. Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a common marketing point of emphasis by brokers, whose action execution varies considerably from company to company. When execution prices are not matching the submitted price the client is charged or credited the difference resulting from the negative or positive slippage.Slippage is a very contentious issue among retail traders, which can lead to issues. Many traders view levels of slippage at brokers as a key determinant for their business. Best Execution a Legal ObligationBrokers are required by law to diver to their clients the best execution possible. Some regulators are requiring brokers to submit execution stats in order to assess the quality of their services. Other brokers are regularly posting execution statistics in order to boost the confidence of their clients in the best execution commitment of the company.Best execution has been a point of emphasis in recent years from both retail and institutional players in the FX industry. Negotiating and executing transactions in order to promote a robust, fair, open, liquid and appropriately transparent FX market is identified as one of the six main principles outlined in the FX Global Code of Conduct, which came into effect in 2018. Read this Term speeds of less than 4ms to its clients in the Asia-Pacific region.

With the Japanese market accounting for about 40% of the global retail FX volumes, adding a matching engine in Japan puts LMAX Exchange on track to deliver solid execution to its clients there.

The firm is already operating its original matching engine from Equinix London data centre (LD4/5), delivering low latency execution.

The company's CEO, David Mercer, commented in the company announcement, “Over the past couple of years, we have witnessed a real shift in FX trading towards transparent price discovery and a level playing field. With the launch of the Tokyo matching engine, we can now offer the same low latency execution in under 4ms, that all our clients enjoy in LD4, to our clients in Asia-Pacific."

Elaborating on the merits of the location of the matching engine, Director of Technical Operations at LMAX Exchange, Andrew Phillips, said, “Through TY3 we gain close proximity to major financial institutions in Japan; this combined with access to the broadest choice of networks, means our Tokyo matching engine can deliver sustained processing capacity of 40,000 orders per second, giving us a significant competitive advantage in the region.”

Senior Director, Financial Services and Enterprises, Equinix Asia Pacific, David Wilkinson, concluded, “The deployment of LMAX Exchange in Japan signifies the exuberant growth in the region, as more and more financial services providers and FX trading platforms are expanding into Tokyo. It also further strengthens TY3 as our FX hub in the region, demonstrating our global financial ecosystem inside Equinix.”