I'll tell you what. You give me a call and I'll tell you the guy's name. I know for a fact the rates he was paying. He was running a group. He negotiated his rates for the group. They were much less then IB. And yes, the guy does more volume then probably all the guys on here combined. No, I'm not insinuating anyone on here could get those rates nor did I ever imply it. I don't work for them and have no need to waste me time lying about their rates on a public message board. The only advice I have given to guys on here is never pay the asking price. Everything is negotiable. That does not mean one who trades 100 contracts a month is going to get a low rate. But if they just ask, they can probably cut their stated rates in half. That's it. That's all I've got. If you want to call me, I'll give you the guys name and cell number and you can call to verify with him. But if you do that, I say we put some money on this to make it interesting. Most people who know me on here know I don't bullshit. So if you want to question my word, it's going to cost you. Could be the easiest trade you ever made in your life.
Dude, ask him about his volume. Very high volume traders at IB get 15 cents a contract. so if he negotiated a rate lower than 70 cents, good for him, i bet he still can get lower with IB. i'm sure if you trade enough (a level i'll never reach) even IB would negotiate with you.
I'm not disagreeing with you. All I said is everything is negotiable. I'm sure one can negotiate with IB as well. My guess is he probably a had a preference for the software.
There is no volume requirement. [edit] TOS and TDAmeritrade both gives me 0.75 per contract without any volume commitment. BTW I can't get a lower future commission rate from TOS.
Indeed possible, even at the volume level of IB's base rate. I have both ToS and IB. I trade mainly with ToS, reserving IB for their analytics.
I dont like IB but theres really no alternative for foreigners wanting to trade US markets. Deposits and withdrawals cost $50+ for each broker different from IB. But with IB, these are completely free. The inactivity fee or market data fee of $240 beats the 50$ per wire, if you do 5 wires a years its already costs more than IB "unreasonable" fees which says alot about how unreasonable some other brokers really are.
How high is very high. Will 3,000 contracts a month qualify? If not what will that size get , ballpark wise?
Not true, I have an account with Etrade, opened through their HK office, deposits are free of charge, and withdrawals cost 10usd . Besides as they have a usd HSBC account in HK I also don't need to pay any bank fees when receiving or sending money through another HSBC HK account. Wiring USD to IB US based account is costlier. US market data and news are also cheaper with Etrade for corporations, which is the main reason why I keep the Etrade account. Besides I also have an IB account and IB is cheaper for many other operations plus offers access to a far more global market.