No. They are introducing brokers for large clearing firms. for example Rosenthal Collins for e-local has been around a very long time.
Universal futures offered by IB is swept daily I think .ex. you have 20K and 5 K is used for magin in futures, they would sweep the balance into SIPC sub-acct. Check fine print of IB. Sweeping your futures acct into your personal account is the best way to protect. open an account fund it, make $, sweep profits, rinse lather and repeat.
There is (almost) no risk with Advanced futures (I have an account with them) because your money is with the clearing firm (GH).They are only an introducing broker. Futures brokers and clearing firms are much different then equities brokers (e-trade and such).You should look much more into that to answer any of your questions.
There is always risk, the question is the varying degrees. GH is a clearing firm and FCM, seems to be very stable but that does'nt mean that a trader ala V. Neiderhoffer, or the guy from Barings from blowing them out. Check out Klein futres-they were a member firm much like GH and the exchange in a magnanimous gesture ponied up to reimbuse the customers. Don't worry too much about it since the trader is the biggest blowup risk not the firm.
GA, If that's true (and I have no reason to believe it is not) then that really is a huge step forward. I guess it would be kind of hard for IB to tout that aspect of it without having to answer the question, "So, now, what about my futures account? Is that protected?" I need to look into this further. (oh no, more fine print.)
I have gathered dozens of e-mails from many different firms and I will send them an e-mail to see what they can offer. E-local, Advanced futures and IB are the cheapest ones so far. But I heard that IB goes down frequently when trading ES and NQ. Is that true? And what about the others?
5.98 RT - All fees included. Advanced futures will be 4.90 RT: plus 1 per side or 500 a month. Which is going to be pretty much the same in my case.
Then I guess just go with the execution platform you like best. Personally, I can only daytrade S&P mini with J-Trader. I use IB for more mechanical and system type trading(API program, etc.).
Since you guys are saying that is hard for a firm to go broke, is it safe to open an account with just any firm? Or should they "AT LEAST" be associated with NFA? And about the clearing firm, when I asked about Advanced Futures, theplumber said that it clears through GH, therefore I should not be in much risk.... But doesn't practically all these firms around the net clears through a Clearing firm? Or are there self-clearing firms? And regarding the clearing firms, are practically all of them safe? If so, and If all of the firm clear through them....then, automatically makes all firms around the net a safe choice, which I doubt. There are some firms offering futures trading through a web site that looks like it was done by a child, poorly made. It's very hard to send you money to firms like that. So what to do? How to identify what is good and what is bad? Or is impossible to do that?