What would you professional traders doing size (250 RT and above) think about a FCM that wanted to charge an exchange seat lessee an "account charge" of say $2000/month in addition to FCM clearing fees, just in case you don't do the volume you say your going to do (so they can make a minimum profit on account) ie just to make it worth their while to mess with a new (to them) unknown professional trader?
Depends if you can document your trading. A lot of clearing agreements with razor thin margins are subject to a monthly minimum. Who is it? Call me and I will tell you how to get around it if there is a way.
Am I missing something here? I have been shopping for an emini broker for a week and have gotten a huge range between $5.5 to $18 RT -no one even comes close to IB as far as price of $4.8 Rt. Someone here posted about FFastrade. I checked it out and for the remote professional futures trader, they have a system wherein you pay $500/mo and pay $1.5 per side transaction fee, it does'nt include market data and exhcnage fees. I looked at CME and the exchange clearing fee is 30 cents per side and I assume NFa fees are around 5 cents per side which brings the total cost to $1.85 per side coming out to $3.70 RT. Am I missing another component of this pricing structure? Is this too good to be true? What is the catch? Anybody use them? Who do they clear thru? Thanks
I saw the platform , demoed it for a short time and think that its simplity is what would make it enticing-less bells and whistles less bugs. Witness old IB TWS users wo yearn for the old version which is rock stable vs. later releases. I still don't understand how after 2 weeks of looking for a futures broker, reading elite posts for 8 months and marveling at how no one can even touch IB $4.8 RT rate, this FFastrade comes along and blows IB away by approx $1.15 per RT, of course you have to contend with the $500 lease which is nothing for size traders. Any thoughs/comments.?
GATrader - I agree with you. I would have thought there would be more interest at those price levels from active traders on this board. Have you contacted them to confirm that the additional fees for trading a mini-contract matches the 35c/side that you come up with? That is the only thing that I can think of that would make FFastTrade less compelling - if the all in round turn cost were more then the $3.70 that you calculated on an earlier post.
$550 / mo "lease" 50 cents to them 1.16 CME/NFA comes to $3.32 RT Pretty sure of that they clear GNI.Ig uess breakeven Vs. Ib would be around 300-400 contracts?
If you do not lease a seat at the CME, the clearing/exchange fees are $2.28 R/T. Add Their ticket fee of $1.50 a side, it comes to $5.28 R/T plus $500 a month.
That is right BUT they have a 550 per month where it is a straight 3.32 RT inclusive. Their $500 per month plan is funky ( sorto like $500 pre-paid on the trans fee of $1.5)It is funky coz they rebate you back unused trans fee on the $500 Ex. $500 per month you do 100 RT. Your commish is $532 like you said $5.32 RT) BUT They rebate back unused trans fee $500-$150 = $350 which 'offsets' the $532 you paid out making your net cost for that month $532- $350. If you trade 200 RT. The rebate is $1.5 * 200 = 300 cost for month of which you prepaid 500 so rebate is $200 which offsets your 5.32 RT * 200 you "pre-paid $500 I had to call them 3 times to get them to explain it to me.