Uhh, write a check for ~$600k. But to the original question... Despite all the noise, seg funds at top-tier FCMs are as safe as anything else in life. Even customers of the criminal ex-Senator got most/all of their money back, and that was a worst case. You have much more to fear from your own poor trading than from an FCM bankruptcy. I'll predict zero of the top 25 (by seg funds) FCMs will lose any customer funds in the next 25 years. If I'm wrong, come back to this thread and flame me...
AMP is just like the other futures brokers. You have no protection on your money. Why wouldn't you just use a real broker like IB? If you can't come up with 10K to open an account then you should not be trading futures.
It all comes back to the JP Morgan quote, "The first thing [in credit] is character, before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it. A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom. I think that is the fundamental basis of business." As a seg funds customer, you're essentially a creditor of the FCM, the creditworthiness of which depends solely on the character of its principals, not on "protections." Customers of the ex-Senator knew he was a lowlife, but they sold their souls in return for ultra-cheap commish. That's a dangerous game to play. If you absolutely, positively don't want to lose seg funds, clear through one of the big banks -- GS, DB, JP, ML et al -- that will still be around when cockroaches are the only surviving life form on Earth.
Are you saying AMP is one of the most shady futures brokerages? I think they seem like good, well-established folks compared to Ninjatrader brokerage.
Never dealt with AMP and have no reason to doubt their rectitude. A good rule is, make sure the principals have plenty of personal capital invested. Some smaller FCMs -- I won't mention any names -- keep the minimum required capital in the firm, which is a red flag. You want to be sure the principals have plenty of skin in the game, ideally most or all their net worth.
I"m not calling them shady or legit. What I am saying, is that you're money is not protected. It is possible that they can go belly up, and if they do, you can lose all your funds. I would personally go with a much larger real brokerage, like IB for example. There are a lot of choices out there, I think the main reason people use companies like AMP is because they have a low account minimum and higher leverage. But again, if you don't have money, you really have no business trading futures.