Nice one! I noticed the $300 margins in my 'platform setup' screen and stayed away from it. AMP do very clearly state on the page that there will be higher commissions for all trades if I selected that option. While $300 margins can sound attractive I can't see a scenario where they're worth the additional commissions.
So I heard that AMP is no longer going to be supporting NinjaTrader. Existing users are grandfathered in, but for how long?
NinjaTrader with CQG will no longer be available for new customers after March 10, 2015. For all our existing customers using NinjaTrader, we will continue to support (business as usual). Any NinjaTrader User that purchased a NinjaTrader MultiBroker Key (Lifetime or Lease) or has a NinjaTrader License Key (Lifetime, Lease or Direct Edition/FREE) enabled for CQG, Rithmic or Trading Technologies access is entitled to all NinjaTrader software upgrades and new releases, such as NinjaTrader 8, etc... Existing customers will be able to renew their Direct Edition “FREE” and Lease licenses without complication by emailing trading@ampclearing.com If you have an existing NinjaTrader Key enabled for CQG, Rithmic or Trading Technologies, you are eligible to transfer your trading account from any brokerage, including NinjaTrader Brokerage to AMP Global Clearing. For more information about the advantages of transferring your trading account to AMP, please visit our website: www.ampfutures.com
Right now at Interactive Brokers I am paying for ES, per side: 0.85 Commissions 1.16 Exchange fees 0.01 Regulatory fees Total = $4.04 round turn, all in. No carrying fees, no "CME market data bundle fees" (like AMP charges), no platform fees (like AMP charges), and no other trading fees of any kind. My total costs are $4.04 round turn per ES contract for everything. Period. The AMP home page says, for example, that X Trader Pro is free. But when you get to the rate page https://portal.ampclearing.com/account/commissionquote.aspx it seems to show an extra charge of $1 RT per contract along with the data fees and higher-than-IB commissions. Do I have this right? How is AMP less expensive than IB, all-in?
I speak from experience: whilst the account balance < $10k I pay the same as I did with IB ($4.04 RT per ES contract and that's via the CQG route). Our equity deposit is now > $10k so I understand from http://www.ampfutures.com/Cost_Calc.html that we should start getting $3.54 per RT starting next week. We're 2 weeks in with AMP and so far the staff have been efficient and professional (I had to use the Live Chat to check the status of an account deposit and email to make an account enquiry). The biggest positives over IB for me are: I get a decent platform to trade with (MultiCharts.NET) Good quality tick data (IBs datafeed didn't support my trading signals which require real tick data as opposed to the time-sampled data that IB provide) The margin leverage ($400 per contract during the day is astonishing) - though you have to know how and when to use it or else a poorly managed trade can very quickly wipe your account clean! And a couple of minor drawbacks: We're an international client and with IB we can do account withdrawals for free, AMP charge $30. There's a $25 per contract fee if AMP are forced to close your position for margin / liquidity issues. Again, only a problem if you have a poorly managed trade. All in all I'm happy and am unlikely to switch away from AMP as long as service availability and reliability remain good. I wrote about my MultiCharts.NET experiences over here.
Thank you for your reply, but are you sure you are correct? The AMP $3.54 round turn you are quoting does not appear to include fees. Thus it compares to IB's $1.70 RT as I stated above, no?
I can confirm next week once I get some statements but am fairly sure the $3.54 figure is an 'all in'
Ok, so AMP hadn't automatically changed our commission rate - I have dropped them an email asking if they could do that. Just waiting to hear back
AMP updated my commission rate and my statement now looks like this: so for me: $3.52 all-in per round-turn on ES confirmed.