I read a review claiming their cheaper than IBKR while offering the same thing. It’s hard to believe that since IB is pretty advanced. https://www.generictrade.com/
GenericTrade is an IB for IronBeam. Platform(s) are proprietary so you are locked in: no 3rd parties. Odd rules (imo) for intraday margining, with limited hours of availability. The .59c commission is in additon to exchange, data, and any route fees. From a futures viewpoint, these trade costs (commish+fees) are "competitive". But for me, the oddities of their intraday margining, proprietary warez, and a very small FCM precludes GenericTrade from being on a short list. I can not speak about their handling of option trades. I am not now, or have I ever been a client of IBKR. Good trading to you!
I've traded with them for a long time and found them to be pretty good for day trading futures. I used to trade options and had an account at Think or Swim, before they were bought out and that platform was great for options compared to Generic, but for futures their main platform for Windows works great for me. It's a lot faster than others and doesn't have a ton of indicators, but the dom is great and the data is the best I've used. Also, I was able to figure it out quickly. I have an account at etrade for stocks and am enabled for futures and there is no comparison between the two - between margin, fees and useability for day trading. As for what tiddlywinks said, the additional transaction charges are the exchange and nfa, but no data or route fees. For day trading, they make you use a stop order and get out 10 minutes before the close (maybe that's the oddities tiddlywinks was referring to?), but you can get back in and trade with day trade margin all night, which I can't do at etrade or TDA (I still have a few dollars in there from my TOS days). Anyways, they are pretty basic and not for the guy who is building fancy charts for 18 hours at tradestation, but I just like to trade ES and maybe some metals every once in a while and I've been happy.
Regarding fees, refer to the footnotes on the "additional fees" popup on this page... https://www.generictrade.com/commissions/ *Generic Trade clients will automatically subscribe to the Generic Trader suite of platforms (Generic Trader Professional, Online and Mobile) and will be subject to a $59/month subscription fee. Since the CME Group has raised their fees (see above for details), CME Group and ICE fees will be added by request only. If you wish to select the free Generic Trader Online exclusively, you must do so by email, prior to the initial funding of the account. Regarding your mention of no data fee, a.k.a free data, refer to this page... https://www.generictrade.com/cme-group-data/ Please note that if you are not subscribed to the market segment, you will still receive real-time data, but only for the last trade and not for the full market depth. The oddities I refer to are in the footnotes on this page... https://www.generictrade.com/commissions/margins/ The thing they call Enhanced Intraday Margin System (EIMS) appears to apply to some very popular products including indexes! ¹Standard Day Trade Margin is offered to most clients with futures trading experience and is available during any open session as long as a $1000 balance is maintained. Strict adherence to the Intraday Margin Policy (provided upon funding account) is necessary to maintain day trading margin privileges. ²The Enhanced Intraday Margin System (EIMS) is available by request from seasoned traders that have familiarity with our platforms and risk management expectations. At least $1000 must be maintained at all times and clients enabled with EIMS, are only permitted to trade from 8:30am CT to 3:05pm CT. Full details and restrictions of the EIMS are outlined in the EIMS policy. Thanks for sharing your current first-hand experience. Good trading to you.
I’ve been studying a lot about trading for quite some time and want to know how much money I need to trade the ES.
It’s not much. The E-mini S&P 500 Futures come with the lowest day trading margins. Some brokers ask for $500 and this means that you need to have this much of an amount in the account to buy or sell the contract.
I don’t think there’s any minimum amount of balance you need to maintain day-trade futures. But yes, you do need to have enough money in the account to cover the trading margins and fluctuation that could arise because of your positions.