Last look liquidity and why fills feel one-sided
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 6:45 am
Some liquidity providers get a brief window to accept or reject a trade after the order reaches them. That window is called last look, and it explains a lot of the "price was there on the screen but the fill came worse" complaints.
The catch for scalpers is the asymmetry. When price moves against the provider during that window, the order tends to get rejected or repriced. When price moves in the provider's favour, the order goes through. Over hundreds of trades, that filtering quietly eats a slice of the edge.
Targets of one or two pips are the most exposed, because the entire profit margin can sit inside the hold time. A 100 to 200 millisecond delay sounds trivial until a stop-run is underway and price moves a full pip in that span.
Some brokers publish whether their feeds use last look and what the hold times are. Some will only say it after a direct question to support. The wording of the answer matters as much as the answer itself.
Has anyone actually got a straight written reply from a broker about last look hold times, and did the live fills match what was claimed?
The catch for scalpers is the asymmetry. When price moves against the provider during that window, the order tends to get rejected or repriced. When price moves in the provider's favour, the order goes through. Over hundreds of trades, that filtering quietly eats a slice of the edge.
Targets of one or two pips are the most exposed, because the entire profit margin can sit inside the hold time. A 100 to 200 millisecond delay sounds trivial until a stop-run is underway and price moves a full pip in that span.
Some brokers publish whether their feeds use last look and what the hold times are. Some will only say it after a direct question to support. The wording of the answer matters as much as the answer itself.
Has anyone actually got a straight written reply from a broker about last look hold times, and did the live fills match what was claimed?