Smart Live Markets Website

ABOUT SMART LIVE MARKETS

Smart Live Financial Services Ltd (trading as Smart Live Markets) is a young, dynamic and forward thinking company, conceived in 2008 and founded in 2009.

We aim to be one of the biggest online derivative trading houses in the world, geared towards the retail private investor, through forward thinking and a substantial investment of capital.

It was set up by a management team of highly experienced individuals, some of whom have spent over 20 years working in the City and understand all areas of this industry, and equally importantly, the needs and concerns of customers.

Coupled together with the international financing behind the company, we believe that this places Smart Live Financial Services Ltd in a unique position to capitalise and build upon this vast array of experience to create a truly dominant and cutting edge financial trading service provider.

We are based in London and are fully regulated by the FSA, giving all clients, throughout the world, the benefit and peace of mind knowing their deposits are segregated and covered by the regulations of the FSA client money rules.

By starting from scratch we have been able to cherry pick the best technology available to us and deliver a global product to our customers which is second to none.

We will ultimately be offering our clients a choice of trading platforms linked to a central state of the art back office system, enabling advanced account and money management.

We provide access to over a thousand markets worldwide on state of the art trading platforms, and are able to offer bespoke markets to certain clients if there is sufficient demand.

Smart Live Financial Services Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Click here to access Smart Live Markets.

We don't have and have never had an account with this broker. If you have traded with this broker, for the benefit of others, please be the first to leave a review.

Thanks in advance,

I've recently opened a demo account with them. Ok, and a real one but it isn't getting any cash until the demo proves itself. I'll be running the 1 minute system and Forex Net Trap on it as the spreads (and slippage) are familiar to many users here, and I personally find that it's easier to judge when you compare to something that you already know or use.

1. Regulation
FSA 501320. Check out Financial Services Authority and you can read who runs the place on the FSA Register. Looks fair enough but we don't really see how big they are from there. They seem to have been around for a year.

2. Reliability
No evidence on how reliable it is yet. I will report back. But given it uses the MT4 platform it would be a shame if it wasn't 24hours.

3. Markets/Availability
15 currency pairs, 5 indices, 2 futures and lots of CFDs (but I don't really do CFDs). Possibly more but maybe you need to ring them (I have done this in the past with other MT4 brokerages). They also do traditional Forex trading with lots more options.
http://www.smartlivemarkets.co.uk/do...-spreadbetting shows all the pairs and spreads on a PDF.

4. Interface
MT4 is the killer app for this broker. None of this bespoke Java stuff that can break on your next Firefox upgrade or extension. You can code your own indicators or even robots, and use the hundreds of indicators out there already for free. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean SmartLiveMarkets are nice.

5. Execution
To be seen. I think MT4 logs any slippage so I can gather data.

6. Spread
Available from their homepage. I've currently got an EURUSD chart on both live and demo, and it's constantly on 1 pip spread.

7. Support
I haven't used their support. Their FAQ is a bit basic but I guess the phone and email support is where it counts.

8. Charting Package
MT4 is the star here, but you can use Currenex too.

9. Guaranteed Stops
Don't know, I don't use them. A Google site search of their website doesn't pick up any guaranteed stops.

10. Additional Functionality
What more do you need than MT4? You can also be notified to updated of any of their help pages. It's also really easy to open an account, real or demo.

A closing note as of today 27th July 2010 - I still haven't seen very much talk about them on the usual forums which is a bit weird. That coupled with the fact that they seem to be the first MT4 broker makes me a tiny bit wary, but this is a risky game we play.

Z

Z - This detailed update (inline with our Spread betting article) and you taking on "guinea pig" status here is much appreciated as are your future updates - This would certainly be a broker we would be keen to hear more about, them being the first Spread Betting Broker to offer MT4, as far as we know. We are also considering running 1 Minute Daily on it.

Thanks again and do please let us know how you get on.

Just had a chat with the smartlive customer service guy - very helpful but I am left with the feeling that only live experience will give true measure of performance. My main concerns would be order processing, which tends to improve with broker size, as we have observed with Alpari over the years. Alpari rarely requotes these days using STP and NDD order processing. I am also always suspicious of very new brokers (2009 in this case) which promise everything, but you then find orders unfilled and delays in withdrawing funds etc. They have confirmed that their SB MT4 forex platform trades at £1 per lot per pip which is straightforward enough. I will look forward to other reviews before switching - as already discussed it's USP is the MT4 platform which I am amazed IG haven't offered to date, being the de-facto platform for the forex traders..

Thanks for that feedback. Yes, it will be a test of time and hopefully, collectively we can share our experiences and thus make a better placed judgement call. Re: IG Index, their advanced charts are excellent but yes, it is a surprise they haven't yet offered some form of MT4 integration - Perhaps they are satisfied with the current platform, they seem to have invested heavily in it!

Regarding IG and MT4, apparently there is a particular 'huff' going on there. You can only do so much on their advanced charts and it's not really possible to build the bot that takes them to the cleaners. It's all about control.

petersurrey makes a good point which I once again forgot all about - withdrawals! I have yet to withdraw cash from IG, SLSB or my forex broker FXCM. I tried FXCM once and unfortunately the moon was not in the correct phase. I am tempted to make some test deposits just to withdraw them.

Regarding STP and NDD, does this even apply for spreadbetting? I don't believe so - the broker is always the market maker in SB if I remember rightly.

I have been trading with a live account for about 4 weeks now so happy to share my experience.

What I have always pined from spread betting platforms is transparency - and as MT4 allows me to add virtually any indicator I wish this platform certainly delivers that! It's refreshing to be able to see the bid and ask on the screen of a SB platform and see what actually happens to the spread - as a result I'm more likely to point the finger at myself for making a bad trading decision as opposed to wondering if my broker 'fiddled' with my order behind the scenes.

Execution is fast and so far the stops have been very tight with little slippage (if any). There have only been a couple of occasions my order hasn’t been executed due to market volatility, but you know instantly and don’t have to hang around 30 seconds with a re-quote message. It also allows you to hedge.

However, what does frustrate me is the inability to place orders outside of usual market hours – I had hoped to use it to enter my EOD FTSE350 orders, but can only do so at market open. I was originally drawn to SML as I hoped to ditch my other SB platforms and keep it simple, but looks like I’ll be keeping the others open for the time being. (The only market you can trade 24/5 is the NASDAQ.. I can’t even place FX overnight but I use an exchange for my FX anyway)

Secondly, the FTSE100 Index opens upto 2mins later than the actual market – I’m sure this is not a Major problem for most, but it does bug me somewhat as I’m actually using another brokers charts to monitor what happens at open.

Customer service is fine, but then again I’ve not found myself in the need to put them through their paces - so this can only be a good thing!

All in all I am happy with their service so will be sticking with them – it’s just a shame I still have to use other platforms for my EOD trading. Maybe this is something that will be implemented over time…


Matt

Hi Matt,

Welcome to the forum and your first but excellent contribution - It seems all we are hearing so far are pretty good things about this Spread Betting MT4 platform - Thanks again, appreciate your taking the time to share this.

I'm running Forex Net Trap and the 1 minute daily EA on SLSB MT4 to see if the former performs as well (it does so far!) and if the latter performs at all.
Given the reliability of the net trap system, I'm going to start cobbling together a script/EA for FNT to run specifically on SLSB with the aims of:
1)Closing the trade automatically.
2)Moving the SL to B/E according to time and/or profit.
2)Setting the SL and TP automatically, user definable.
3)Opening the trade automatically.
4)Sizing the trade according to money management rules.
Personally I'll be happy if I can manage (1) as it can be irritating to look up from your cereal and realise it's 8.40. I'm sure someone has written something like this already but that's not the point.
Z