If you want to trade options on the S&P 500 index all night, IMO, I would rather trade the options on the ES futures than SPX options before 9:30am et. Very few brokers offer option trading outside normally option hours. There are less market makers offering liquidity and there is less customer flow. On the CME, option trading at night and early morning seems like it has better access to depth and liquidity. After 9:30am et, I prefer SPX unless I need to hedge with ES futures.
Well then he was intentionally not being clear, which is even sillier. Yes, some offer that, an even thinner market than the overnight. Not provided by the exchange.
Robert is spot on - upstairs after-market hours trades have way more generous b/as. You gotta want to trade badly. Liquidity has a price.
It does not have to make sense to me, only you. We have both retail and institutional clients that clear at Wedbush Securities and Wedbush futures. If you like TT, we offer that for futures but not for the CBOE (SPX). With have other software for that including Lightspeed Trader, Sterling Trader Pro and RealTick. Realtick can handle both asset classes but not options on Futures. We do not offer cross margin, or $2000 margin on ES futures or $0.05/Futures rates. If you get what you need at JPM, go for it. I did not know they took accounts under $25mm.
I am not bringing in below the amount that you stated. Also, for example, is there a possibility that if I wanted to enter a long put for up to 100,000 SPX, get all the liquidity I can get there without moving markets, before going into other index options, then equity options, etc. (till I get my required fill equivalent to 100k SPX's nominal value), that your risk will hold my order and ask me to break it down in size? Or ask me to get in slower? Of course at best you will say you do not know and I'd have to enquire more perhaps, but the ultimate answer will be yes. This is despite the fact that the risk it poses to your firm would be near zero. Also, what options do you guys have for DMA and DSA access, including your algo order routing? Is it competitive with the bulge brackets? Will I be able to make block trades and find counterparties that are competitive to a Morgan or Goldman? I have different needs from the vast majority of retail traders, but I suppose using the word retail trader has created confusion.... though that is what I am in everything but account value (and hell, I'd even say that latter part isn't true, I know of retail clients that have account values in the 10 figures).
I guess you already have millions and millions of dollars in your bank account. Then we should be asking you this question, not the other way round.
Is it possible for someone to have money and not have made it in the world of finance. I'd love to be on the other side, but no, I am ignorant of quite a few things as it regards this stuff. I will be getting answers on these questions either way, but I thought the internet would lead to some interesting opinions I might not get elsewhere.
If you don't mind saying so, What's your back story as it regards to trading, and your past/other life? Supposedly you have...let's throw a large random number out.....60 million from somewhere. And one day, out of the blue, you decided you want to buy 200,000 SPX options contracts? Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you are not a weirdo troll.