Hello, I am getting back at trading futures actively and Advantage made me a nice clearing offer given I am not a high volume trader. Experiences? Is it complicated to get risk to approve new instruments? Is the service OK in general? bureaucratic? How about CFTC financial datas? Do they put you on a worse commission schedule if you don't make enough volume for some time? I was at Marex spectron previously. Thanks.
I had an absolutely horrific time with Advantage. First they gave me a platform and I was finding all sorts of bugs in it. It wouldn't submit my options trades correctly which was scary. When I confronted them about my many trading issues then they admitted they had given me a platform that was still in beta. I could not believe they let me trade my real money in a beta platform. After that event I was furious and I told them I wanted to fully close my account. I then had problems getting my money back from them. They wouldn't refund my full account until I threatened to report them to the NFA. I was ready to take legal action. It was just a disaster. I have this all in emails
They are great as long as you do not carry futures overnight. I was with them for years, but I swing futures positions and they put in an overnight charge. I had over seven figures with them and it became prohibitive. Had to go. Had no problem wiring money out. Other than that overnight deal breaker,I liked them very much.
Wow...That's exactly what I don't want. It's weird because I told them I would carry overnight positions up to half the account, they told me to submit a spreadsheet of products for pre-approvement. They told me they would deliberate for the aggressive pricing before creating the account but never talked about an overnight charge. I will reach them for this. Thanks a lot.
There was no explanation why they could not return my money. It took them 3 transfers and it was a relatively small account. It was very stressful as I was calling them and emailing them constantly asking why they had only only partially refunded my money. They then refunded another small amount maybe hoping I would go away. That was when I threatened to go to the NFA and they then sent the final amount. No explanation was ever given. I figured if they were having trouble returning funds from an account that was only 5% of my total trading account there was no way I was moving the rest of my trading there. I live in Canada so my choices of futures brokers who allow options trading is very limited. I am currently with IB for futures and TD Canada for Equities. I have started threads on the issues with IB margin issues but at least I can get my money out when I want. Their platform also has numerous issues which other posters have threads on. God help you if you call support..... The platform (ToS) at TD is excellent and I can move money in and out with a few mouse clicks as I also bank with them but in Canada they don't allow futures trading, customer service is also fantastic. I would be giving them huge commissions if only they did futures. They do allow futures trading with TD Ameritrade but won't accept Canadians. So you should check them out if you live in the US. If anyone knows any other futures brokers for Canadians let me know.
Weird...What was the amount we are talking about?( PM if you want )What do you mean by "their platform", Advantage has an in-house trading platform? I will probably use TT or Stellar.
Marex and UK brokers in general are fine when you are trading actively. You use professional platforms/VPN or desk,you pay low commissions but you also have monthly minimums( 1K GBP for Marex ).Last year as volatility in commodities went down, I found myself trading less and less. I couldn't justify all these fixed costs. Marex is fine though. Had my best trading years there. They also invited me 3 times to go see Arsenal in London.
In the US, all deep discount brokers that I know will charge an overnight fee for an overnight open position. Usually, the charge is about an annualized rate of 4 to 12% depending of the broker, multiplied by the total exchange minimum maintenance margin requirement (do the maths!). Tradestation would charge a "fixed overnight fee" of $0.10 per contract. I think NFA charge all Future brokers $0.01 overnight fee, except for exchange members. If you don't want that kind of fees, you need to find a "fixed pricing" Broker.