Guys, Echo is planning to add futures trading 2 months from now.... The first who told me this was RobTharp, I made a telephone call to Echo and Rob Keller confirmed this. However they could not tell me yet something about the commission structure or the minimum start capital. The first news about this would appear on the website... This would be the first professional firm to offer futures trading as far as I known... Anyone knowns of another firm offering futures trading ?
I'm interested in trading the Emini and this seems like the perfect way to do it. I wonder about the capital requirements though. I know the leverage in futures is very high so Echo will probably ask for more than the normal amount. That's what I would do anyway to manage the risk of intraday futures trading.
Mr. Tharp, Could you please update the information on this thread and possibly answer the questions. Thank you, bronks
not related to futures, but what happened to Echo's website? the technology section no longer shows parts of the software...and some of the other pages seem unfinished......
Bright Trading has been able to trade E-minis for quite awhile. Don can fill you in on the pricing. A few traders in my office have tried them with marginal success.
Just checked out echo's web site and it looks the same to me. what part appeared unfinished????? I just checked out each page and they all look fine to me.
bryan roberts things diff w/ echo site are: 1) can't view pic's of workstations 2)can't view screen shots of echotrader and first alert 3)there was something else , but i forgot already not big deal's but just wondering if you were changing the technology section or something
My question is this, do you think you have an edge trading the E-minis, and if so, what do you base your decisions on when making your entry trade?
With futures trading you can already get some pretty heavy leverage for intraday trading that I am curious how much additional leverage a firm would give you, or that you would want to take? You can currently negotiate $1k per contract margin for emini ES and NQ with several brokers ($1500-2500 is standard). I rarely ever trade the max available margin with some exceptions (like taking long signal in one market and short signal in other correlated market) where my risk is less. I totally understand benefits of additional capital for various scalping/very-short-term trading techniques in stocks, but the nature of futures margins eliminates this need. I realize there are some other benefits of working for a firm, but I am curious about the additional $ leverage, which is the biggest benefit must firms advertise.
My thoughts exactly. I'm also wondering about tax implications of trading futures as an LLC member (i.e. would it negate the partial long term cap gains tax advantages that an independent futures trader has). In addition, a firm wants some return on use of their money so how competitive could they be on commisions? Could they meet or beat $2.50/side per contract and $1k/contract intraday margins? I guess part of it is the LLC's are gearing up to offer single stock futures. I guess a sophisticated risk management department could hedge the firms net stock exposure with index futures.