They are trying to save themselves from getting stiffed by deadbeats. You wouldn't know anyone like that , would you?
What are good alternatives for iB ? There are practically none for retail traders options. Sure, you have TDAmeritrade TOS but their commission cost is practically DOUBLE that of IB.
For futures, there are plenty of FCMs to choose from. The big difference is that IB does not charge for their platform but most FCMs offer broker neutral platforms that have a cost such as CQG.
It is not too hard with most brokers to negotiate commission 50 cents, plus platform fee 50 cents for CTS T4, for example, for a total of $1.00 (plus fees). This is slightly more than IB $0.85 cents (plus fees) but fairly close. Later with higher volumes, the cost can be brought down further. To get the commission down to 50 cents, ask any futures broker to match the published fee structure of Deep Discount Trading. Many/most will or come close.
deep discount trading and crossland have been cited (and DDT praised) numerous times on this forum, they both offer FOP. And Monster offers cheaper stock options than IB, although I'm not sure wether they pass on (or charge) rebates. IB also costs me more than many brokers because of the per share fee when trading stocks. As I need to fund my account from overseas, i'd rather limit the wire and intermediary bank expense but if you don't have this issue it might be worth opening different brokerage accounts for futures/stocks/options
The fees for a futures option are the same as for the underlying future. Pretty well all futures brokers do both.
Comintel - When you were shopping around for a new broker that gave better margins on futures options, did you have difficulty finding one that matched or exceeded IB for: 1. Risk reports - daily margin, stress test, VaR (the three reports you can run in IB Acct Mgmt)? 2. Portfolio Analysis - canned and custom reports over any time period? 3. "Connectivity" for lack of a better term. Free or low cost API to Excel and a large enough customer base that firms like TradeLog (taxes) will tailor their applications to IB? 4. Something equivalent to IB's Risk Navigator? It may have improved since you left IB -- it now displays Greeks on individual options in the portfolio > then by the contract month > then by the commodity > then by the asset class. The design and colors suck, but it provides a lot of information. In addition to costs, the items above are important to me and I think IB does a good or good enough job with them. However, as time goes on and my accounts grow, that margin issue is going to be a real thorn.