I do not know anything about Eagle but i can tell you that DeepDiscount is in addition to being very well priced gives you top service and has a small but very professional clearing firm -- Crossland -- behind them. I deal with IB and DeepDiscount and am happy with both.
deepdiscounttrading is a serious futures trading company. howard lender is the most professional, responsive and likeable broker i have ever met in the futures trading community. the com/fee rate of 3.65 all in for the ninjatrader is probably the lowest in the industry. futures trading is a commodity. price matters
Here is what you get with Deep Discount: * Howard -- meticulous, quick service and problem solving days, nights, weekends. He is unbelievably client focused. Great guy! * Great rates. * Wide range of platforms and data. Rithmic or CQG data were prerequisites for me. It all stats with quality data that integrates well with the platform you choose. TT has fine data but too many problems with Sierra Charts. When I used TT with their X-Trader the data was great but X is now overkill for me. Even after the $.60 premium per R/T I pay for Rithmic my rate on ES is still under $4 RT and I have exactly what I want feeding into Sierra. * Option to use R/Trader for order entry while using Sierra for charting off the same Rithmic feed. Why is this important? It is not relevant now with low volatility but when the vol spikes it will be nice to have your OCO orders in the market rather than sitting on your machine just waiting to be rejected by the exchange because your stop has been blown though. Many retail traders will be shocked when say Spain falls off a cliff and there is great volatility that allows for a real upside but they realize their stop is theoretical because price is through before it was acknowledged by the exchange and they are NAKED in a bust out move against them! Were you OCO resides (particularly your stop portion) could prove to be key. * Crossland -- very well run and responsive clearing firm. They service lots of pros so they may not be holding your hand if you are new but that's why Howard is there. They made a small mistake -- pennies -- on a trade and the fixed it on the next days statement. Took me 30 seconds to get it resolved. No being put on hold, no back and forth BS they simply said we'll look and if it is our mistake you will see a credit tomorrow. Think about that -- I was off the phone in under 30 seconds. Very good firm. They also deal with one of the strongest commercial banks in the US -- your segregated funds reside there. For those of you not familiar with Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati it is as solid as you get. A mid-sized regional with a pristine balance sheet and zero European lending. The primary reason this matters to me is it is another "tell" that Crossland is paying close attention to their business and our money!! Just like firms with problems give off clues that all is not 100% -- Penson comes to mind -- well run firms give you clues that they are 100%. There has been some illness in my family so I have not put through a ton of trades with the DeepDiscount/Crossland combo but the trading I have done tells me it is not only a winning combo but for me THE winning combo. I have two other firms I deal with and most of my capital resides at Interactive. The bulk of my trading capital being at IB is not because I lack confidence in Crossland's balance sheet; quite the contrary it is in line with their size and gives me comfort. That they are well run also gives me confidence that they segregate properly. Poor attention to segregation detail cost Lehman client over one billion in the UK. At IB I get a Universal Account plus in this age of too big too fail they may just barely squeeze into that bracket when it all hits the fan. With a partner I owned three small (tiny -- 10 employees total) investment banks in the 70's. They were separate firms under common ownership -- New York, London and Lugano, Switzerland -- and I am very sensitive to counter party risk and insistent on evaluating who I do business with. I like to think I know a winner when I see one. Deep Discount is a winner!! This endorsement is unsolicited, unpaid and I have no affiliation with the firm ... lol. My guess is someone will tell me I am a shill ... so be it. Yet there is a reason why every customer gives them high marks. I'm just wordier than the rest!!
just a heads up that I also have an account with Howard since over a year and there is NOBODY in the futures business that is that good and that cheap as DDT If your futures account is less than $1M there is no better fit.