I’ve been scalping ES options lately and, although I’m making money, IB is making a lot, too. I think I’m going to hit a grand in commissions and fees this month. This makes me wonder about TT and paying a flat $500 a month in commissions and fees. I’ve never used trading technology that’s separate from where you keep your money, and I don’t really have a clue how it works or whether it would be right for me. Advice? Thoughts? Am I just being cheap? This is what scalpers have to suck up? How does TT compare with IB’s book trader?
Seems like a no-brainer. You save $500 and get industry leading execution software. Though I can't believe it will be a flat $500. Almost half of the total futures execution cost goes to the exchange and NFA. They will continue to want their share. Crunch the numbers. Comparing TT to IB book trader software is laughable.
Are you an Exchange Member? I paid a few thousand dollars in commission before. I applied for an Exchange membership to lower the commission right away.
TT will be a front-end for a Futures Broker that you select. Margining rules, regulations, and protections are always different for Futures and FOPS. Universal (primarily stockbroker) brokers make it all easy for you by making it look like you have 1 account. Traditional futures brokers will allow you to use T-bills to collateralize your margin requirements. Not as easy as a sweep. As for the difference in the software, there are a lot of subjective factors. It's going to jump out at you when you start putting in orders in your demo. It's like going from an 8 bit video game to 64 bit. As for the objective factors (is there such a term?),...you should know these yourself. Take a drink from the firehose: Trading Technologies - YouTube