I am contemplating a business model for succesful trading and it involves multiple account...What do you think?? 1. Main Life Account..That is a standard discount broker connected to banking features for my living expenses and for those occasional big intraday trades on QQQ and DIA 2. The Super Cheap brokerage account for those small trades (like 100 share lots)...WE all know which one this is 3. Technical Retail Account that offers RealTick..Nasdaq leve II etc for those precision trades 4. Technical Professional Account at firm for super fast T1 connections. 5. Futures Retail account to trade S&P Minins and other futures What do you think
you forgot a miscellaneous account for those times when you know you want to make a trade but can quite figure out what account its supposed to go in.. =) seriously, it sounds confusing to me but whatever floats your boat =) -qwik
I try to keep it a little simpler. Just two: a short-term and a long-term account. For each one all I need is to make sure it allows me to trade the markets I want to trade. If it doesn't, I find a different broker. I suppose your plan has merit but it seems far more complex than it need be, and it spreads your capital around too much.
I would say no 1) and 2) are enough plus a super fast paid RTQ service such as Hyperfeed.com. I like this topic I hope other people join and express opinions.
I think you're making it too complex. Remember KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. I'm not calling you stupid, it's just an expression (one I have to keep telling myself all the time!). In my opinion, you need a "life" account as you call it. This would be an account you can use for long term investments and retirement type stuff as well as for liquidity (i.e.- living, etc.). And second you would need a trading account with real time quotes and somewhat sophisticated charting/monitoring capabilities. Something like RealTick might be good, and I'm sure there are others out there. If you were to trade futures and/or options, you might need a seperate account if it wasn't available in your "stocks" account. I don't trade futures and options (yet), but believe a firm like IB (Interactive Brokers) has stocks, futures, options, & currency trading available. There are many others on this sight that can comment on IB better than I can.
I used to work for a futures broker where many hilarious things happened. One day, a guy came in wanting to open two trading accounts. On further questioning he told us that one account was for winning trades, and the other for losing trades. The winning trade account was to be in his name, and the losing trade account in his wife's name! He was totally serious, and thought he could allocate trades after they were closed to the appropriate account. After he left the office, we were virtually rolling around on the floor with tears streaming down our cheeks.
Zentrader My setup is kind of like that but in reverse. My wife gets the profits from my winning trades but I have to cover my losers.