IMO, ssf's are a big mistake. They will lead to manipulation of stocks, cause unnecessary volatility in stocks without the uptick rule, will give hope to under capitalized traders with the lower margin requirements and will make the floor traders have yet another edge. Why do we need these things? Are there any legitimate good reasons why these ssf's are needed besides another way to rake the public and avoid SEC rules. Is it just the exchanges and the CFTC trying to grab market share? Don't the regulators have a conscience? I cannot think of one reason why the public is better off with these products. aI can think of many reasons why trader types are.
600 bucks a month 600 bucks a month sorry to be repetitive but does Don Bright charge 600 bucks a month for desk space. In addition are you shutting down your NY office. Is anyone in there making a living.
speculator, SSF's have been trading overseas and are doing quite well in Europe while to date they have been pretty much a failure in Asia & Australia. As the commodity exchanges around the world demutualize they naturally have an incentive to offer products that they believe will increase revenues. In Asia, I believe the products are not doing well due to poor marketing by the exchanges and a reluctance of brokers to both offer the products to their clients or make markets. The reluctance of offering to their clients is due to commissions (SSF's are cheaper) and the reluctance to make markets goes along the same lines - why support liquidity in a market that you do not want to be successful. In Europe, there was a great deal of publicity and support from the traditional market making/trading firms. There are also a number of direct access futures brokers that are promoting the products which have lead to their success. Benefits - lower commissions, no stamp tax (as high as 50 bps in some markets), more leverage which is not necessarily evil. As I mentioned in another post, the above benefits are not as great in the states. You can get 4:1 margin on stocks, commissions are cheap and there is no stamp tax. Ofcourse, clearing, corporate actions, and other back office issues are a bit easier in the futures world vs. the physical delivery world. However, you do have many firms such as the one I work for (Timber Hill/IB) which most likely will provide liquidity by providing fair markets and access. I would assume anyone trying to manipulate a stock via SSF's will quickly get arbed back into line. In any event, it is my belief that additional derivative products can actually lead to a decrease in volatility and an increase in volumes. I have no idea if they will succeed but market forces should decide - not the regulators who have the ability to choose whether or not they can be offered.
Desk fees are being reduced considerably for 2002, and no we are not closing NYC at all. We will be adding another location in the area as a mantter of fact. Many traders have chosen to take advantage of our new remote capabilities to avoid the problems downtown. I know the firms that are shutting down locations, but I would rather the news hit properly, since even though they may be competitors in a sense, I hate for the industry to be impacted. For (1/3 less than $600); you get T-1's, direct connectivity, RediPlus, and free use of capital for that little desk fee. And when you consider that many firms charge "tickets" $400 / mo. is about 2 tickets per day....pretty insignificant. Thanks for the opportunity to engage in guilt-free self promotion!
$400 a month????? do you have to share data feed/computers??? how many monitors do you get??? are they 17" or 19"????
I only use a dual screen redi with direct SIAC feeds (and so does my brother). In the "old days" when traders thought they needed to see more "stuff" it was cool to have more monitors, but now it is more cool to simply have what you need to make money. Since our traders are all independent, they can have whatever they want. When the day comes that a serious trader is concerned about the size of his "monitor" (17 vs. 19) then I will be likely to offer him viagra and send him home.
don....i was just curious as to ur setup. sorry i asked the question, i didn't mean to upset you. you seem sensitive to the size of your "monitor".:eek:
OK, enough about size... (no "eek" needed).. I was just trying to lighten things up a bit. Our setups are constantly changing, improving if you will. I am really in favor of the dual (or even 3) screen Redi's. Since Redi has so much new stuff as far as filtering and charting/news available I figure that we may as well use as much of it as we can. First Alert and Track Data are also improving and offer many of our traders all the rest of the "stuff" they may want. Our new spreadsheets make use of the dde links and can be toggled rather than adding a new monitor. Heck, now that monitors are $99 and flat screens are $239...we will be opening the new offices with neat setups.
Quantity discounts on the regular monitors (most anywhere)...and (believe it or not) Costco has flat screens pretty cheap after discounts and rebates ($299 minus..xx)....