can foreigners open future account in US brokers to trade US futures: ES, ZC..? if yes, which brokers are good for this service? thanks a lot!
The answer is yes, many of them will be happy to take your account. There is no one answer to which is best, but Interactive Brokers is the most widely used broker on this board and has foreign branches in the U.K., in Hong Kong, and in Canada so they are used to dealing with foreign accounts and that process should go smoothly. They can handle accounts in multiple currencies etc. I actually think that there are better futures brokers than IB once you are very experienced, but IB is a good starting point for you I think. I will mention that IB has somewhat impersonal customer service. If you want more personal service, one smaller broker you might look at is deepdiscounttrading . I believe that he has quite a few foreign accounts. He gets good reviews and you get to deal mainly with one person. He clears through Crossland which is where your money sits so you do not have to worry that he is small. He opens accounts faster than any other broker I have used. (I myself am moving off IB to other brokers for less commonly applicable reasons but those are two that might suit you).
I second the point about DDT, and would add that Crossland actually guarantee DDT. I did pretty exhaustive work paring down a list of 31 brokers to 3. My final shortlist was; Vision Financial Markets Deep Discount Trading Velocity Futures. The first 2 offer the Rithmic data feed, Velocity reputedly has a great user control panel for managing your account. Your preferred platform and data feed may influence your decision, DDT has Sierra Charts for example and the other 2 do not, VFM and DDT offer Multicharts, and so on. I'm based in Thailand and dealing with these brokers is not diffficult. Account opening requires specific steps they have to follow (they face serious fines otherwise), but is not onerous. You will need government issued ID and a utility bill or bank statement to prove your address, in English. The latter was a problem for me as utility bills here are in Thai, but the broker accepted a dividend payment advice in lieu.
I am about to try PFG but am in the U.S. They clear through Jefferies which should be good. Be sure to negotiate your commission rate.
i a with Interactive brokers, no problems with foreigners, everything without paper, online application
I think most U.S. brokers do it all online, and required documents are simply scanned and emailed to them. The exception I have seen is for corporate accounts. Helps to have a scanner. The only broker I have come across so far that wants paper submitted regardless is a Swiss forex broker, though there will be others for sure.
What I do is "type" on the PDF's using Adobe Acrobat's "typewriter" function. That way I do not even have to scan in their lengthy application forms. You can also stamp them with a pre-scanned signature in Acrobat. Then print to PDF to remove visibility of how it was done and email them the resulting "printed" PDF. It will be the same as if it were really scanned in, but be higher resolution and much smaller.
My experience was a little different, good to know that there are variations for when I open my next account. I could fill all the forms online, they even had an electronic signature function if you checked a box, but I had to scan my Govt issued ID and proof of address document.
Right IB has it almost totally online for most account types, but other brokers still have humongous book-length PDF's, at least for some account types.