Lindex Best Buy help please

[Skye0Lark]

I am a little confused and frustrated. lol  On Sunday, June 25th I placed a Best Buy for Linden at 265 which was the rate listed. It has been 5 days. At the time it said under 7 days. I have seen nothing come into my account yet. I see all these Open SELL orders at much lower rates. Are these people that are wanting to sell linden at that low price? If so, wouldn't you think they would jump on the chance to sell at a higher price?

 

I purchased through Paypal. If I cancel my order on the Lindex, will that money be used for my 'instant' buy or will I be charged again and have the first amount returned to me. I am on a tight budget so am trying to avoid any extra fees. Any help at understanding this would be very appreciated. Thank you. 

[Rolig Loon]

I truly wish Linden Lab had chosen a better label than "Best Buy".  First of all, you are not "buying" anything when you chose the option.  You are placing an order and hoping that someone else will agree to sell to you.  The LindeX is a currency exchange, not a shop.  Second, "best" is misleading, except in the sense that you are hoping for the best price you can get.  There's no guarantee that you can get anyone to buy at your proposed price. If you are unfamiliar with currency exchanges, think of what happens at an auction.  You want to buy a vase or a painting, so you place a bid, hoping that you can buy it at a low price but realizing that someone else may outbid you.

Prices on a currency exchange fluctuate as willing sellers get more or less desperate to sell to willing buyers, and as the number of orders on each side varies.  If you place a BUY order on a day when buyers outnumber sellers, or when sellers are holding out, you can wait a very long time for your order to fill.  There are always some people who place orders well outside the reasonable limits of the market.  Some are patient and hoping for a shift in prices that they can benefit from eventually.  In the case of the LindeX, there are always plenty of people who have no clue what they are doing too, and who place unreasonable orders.  They will have to wait forever until some desperate or very dumb person matches their price.  Most sales are successful within a very narrow band. (Don't try to compare the BUY and SELL rates, by the way.  Remember that buyers and sellers each pay a fee to the market, so both sides have to include that cost in their transaction as well.)

So, what has happened to your money?  When you place an order, Linden Lab immediately charges your PayPal account and puts the money in an escrow account so that it will be available when the sale goes through.  And then you wait.....  If you decide to cancel the order (Lindex >>> Order History on your dashboard). the money goes immediately into your own $ account, where it is available if you  want to place a new order -- either another Limit order or a Market Buy order.  You will not be charged for a sale until a sale actually goes through -- except that you of course paid a fee to PayPal when you placed the original order.  If you decide to take the money out of SL again without buying any L$, you will again have a PayPal fee.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Rolig Loon
typos, as usual

[Skye0Lark]

Rolig Loon, thank you so much for your answer. I think I will just buy automatically from now on. I will cancel my order thru Lindex and go shopping. lol

[Lindal Kidd]

Skye, the Limit Buy method is useful, you just have to know how to use it...and Rolig's given a very good explanation.

You can use Limit Buy to get a little bit better deal on buying or selling $L.  I would use it, if 1) you are buying or selling a fairly large sum, say $100 USD or more, and 2) you don't mind waiting a few days for your money.

What rate should you choose?  There are many ways to decide this.  Go to LindEx/Market Data on your Dashboard page to see a page like this one:

The top graph shows the exchange rate for the past month.  The blue line is the daily close, and the red bars show the trading range over the day, from low to high.  This gives you an idea of the possibilities...an order for somewhere between 250 and 260 could be filled...but an order at 265 probably will not be, if the market continues to trade in the ranges shown.

If you click the LindEx/Manage/Buy $L link, and then scroll down the page, you'll see another table that looks like this:

This shows the current status of open limit orders, both to sell and buy $L.  For each possible exchange rate, it shows the amount of open orders in $L.  Orders are filled first come, first served, so if you place a buy order at $L261, then you'll have to wait while 1) the exchange rate actually hits that value, and 2) hits it long enough and/or often enough for about $L87 million worth of orders to be filled.  Since we know the trading range isn't hitting 261 very often lately, this is probably a poor bet.

(You'll notice the difference between sell and buy rates.  For example, the first sell rate is 250, but the first buy rate is 260.  This spread represents the processing fees levied by LL.)

Next, you can do a comparison of how much you'll save over simply going with the current exchange rate (Instant Buy).  Go ahead and partly fill out an instant buy order, for the amount you want, but don't hit the confirmation button.  The screen will show you how many $L you'll get for your proposed buy.  Then fill out a Limit Buy order, at (for example) a rate of $L260.  You'll see how many $L you would get for that order.  If the difference is enough for it to be worthwhile for you to wait a bit to get it, go ahead and confirm the order.

Lindal's Rule of Thumb:  Picking the top exchange rate in the list will most likely get your order filled in a day or two or three.  Picking the second one will mean you'll wait a week or two.  Picking the third one is a blue-sky bet; you are hoping the market will move strongly.  It does not do this very often, although it has been more volatile than usual the last few months.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Lindal Kidd