Actually I just checked and if you did 1000RT/month: with IB you would pay $1500 in commissions vs $1000 commissions +$500 T4 platform fee with deepdiscount. So it would work out even but you would have a decent piece of software and data. If you were doing more then 1000RT you would save $0.30/RT for the next 4500RT's and then after 4500 the commissions would be $0.10/RT cheaper for IB. If you need news and a decent front end for IB (ie. buttontrader pro) you can add $200/month. Still, you are working with 300ms snapshot quotes...
Well I'm sure he would be fine with an American broker that accepts Canadians considering the choices Canadians have. I believe they are an IB and the FCM is Crossland LLC. When you go to sign up for an account with deepdiscount it sends you to a Crossland page.
http://www.commoditybrokersonline.com/FCM/crossland.html CROSSLAND, LLC 141 W JACKSON BOULEVARD, SUITE 2800 CHICAGO, IL 60604 Phone: (312)786-1930 Website: About the Futures Commission Merchant (FCM): N/A NFA ID Number: 0198022 Date of Registration as FCM: 02/04/1987 Customer Segregated Account $: $ 11,991,273 Ranked 43rd of 55 - Non Broker Dealers Only Introducing Brokers That Clear Through This FCM (Not a Complete List): List of IBs Any "Doing Business As" (DBA's): MKC DIVISION Additional Information from the FCM: N/A
That data is ancient!! Customer segregated assets as of Jan 31, 2012 ... $92,001,585 according to financial info available at CFTC.gov http://cftc.gov/MarketReports/FinancialDataforFCMs/index.htm Additionally, in the USA you should always check National Future Association for membership information and futures-related regulatory and non-regulatory actions contributed by NFA, the CFTC and the U.S. futures exchanges. http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/welcome.aspx
Wow, thanks guys! Lots of help in a short period of time. I checked out those deepdiscount guys, and they've got a pretty shitty website, lol. I like that, though; it implies they're cost-conscious. I'd have gone with Interactive Brokers, but those guys want you to have a $10k deposit and a $25k+ net worth, which I don't have as a poor ol' college student. Anyway, I'll check out all these recommendations and see what comes up. Oh, also. Platform fees. I'm pretty cheap here, but wouldn't want something that just crashes on me. Seems like there are some good deals for about $60/mo or less, which is cool. I don't mind bare-bones so long as it has the essentials and works.
If you want functional and cheap, just go with a broker that uses ninja as a front end. It's got great support and lots of solid 3rd party indicators (like gomcd pack). Its also free if you don't want to use the ATM features and costs a small amt RT to get the static DOM. If you're purely algo, maybe not the best choice but for getting started on the cheap you probably won't do much better. just my 0.02 JO
Yeah I'm pretty sure I made better geocities websites in elementary school then the deepdiscount one, but at least you know they aren't trying to win you over with marketing. As for the platform I believe you will quickly discover there is a reason people will pay up $1600-$2000 a month for TT and CQG. The long and short of it is that most of the execution platforms that cost $60/month don't work. Or they work 90% okay but that 10% will cost you more then you are saving. We could add another 10 pages to this thread discussing this but I have found recently after trying nearly every platform that the best combination of stability and value for execution and charts (should you need them) is CTS T4 + Sierrachart.
^ That's a hell of a lot of money, though. I don't think I'll be at the level where paying $1k a month for platform is chicken feed for a good while yet... But anyway, thanks for the suggestion. Keep e'm coming!
Yeah you don't need TT or CQG to start, but you do want something decent that you aren't going to have to spend half your time trying to get working the way you want it to. Just check out the ninjatrader support board.....pages and pages and pages of complaints, people having problems and slow responses and slow updates from the support team. That's the kind of thing you don't want to have to deal with and it's why people pay up for good software. With that said there are good packages that you pay for per trade and they can be had for cheap if you are trading low volume. It's too bad that Velocity doesn't allow Canadian customers because they have TT for $1/RT, but after trying T4 I have found it to be of similar quality. Only things it doesn't have that I wished it did would be an EPIQ function and a spread matrix, but neither are deal breakers.