We'll see. On the phone with them right now to rectify a serious issue. After hours of phone calls and guarantees that '$800 is $800 no matter what', I got an email before any trading (the second they received the money), saying that I will be at $6000 per contract. This is obviously extremely dishonest and I will update and post a new thread when all is said and done, but holding off for now in case this is a mistake. Lets hope this is just an oversight. In contact with them right now, we will see soon enough.
The full story is you have been talking with our customer service about max. risk limits available to you. Our Risk Management ask you to submit Trading Strategy Profile Request: We would like to gather more information about your trading - so we can work with you to make sure we get proper risk limits established, so it is a good relationship for both of us. It is confirmed day trade margins for the ES is $800 for customers with account balance above 100K+. We also have a few risk limits in place to prevent what we call "fat finger" order errors and/or max position limits. Since you are a new relationship with us and we want to get you setup the way you need to trade your strategy, please answer these questions: Are you a Day Trader, Swing Trader or Mixed (both Day and Swing)? What is the Max. Position Size you have reached previously? What is your Max. Order Click needed? Do you work into your positions (for example 100 lots at a time) up to your max position or do you place orders for your max position (for example 250 lot orders)? Which markets are you going to be trading? ES only or other markets also? Everyone at AMP has vast Exchange-Traded Futures Experience. Answering these questions will help us understand your trading requirements and get us started. Which you replied....... 1. I would call myself both, mostly day trader. If I’m swing then it’s significantly less size. 2. I have reached 800 contracts, with an account value of $12,000,000. I do not plan on doing so with such a small initial wire, unless it’s for a few minutes. 3. I work into my positions, usually anywhere from 20-100 at a time. It varies, with the liquidity at the time. I have early done more. I prefer as high max order click as you can give me, so there are no hang ups. In a rare case of needing more than I usually need, I would prefer that. I was told it’s currently set at 1000 per click. Please confirm that this is the case. 4. /ES 99% of the time, /CL the rest. But I would ask the same level of risk tolerance across the board. I need the feeling of flexibility, even if it doesn’t amount to any action being taken on my end. AMP Risk Management replied...... 1. Ok, cool. Yes, if you are going to carry position past the daily close - your account must be greater than the exchange Maintenance margin requirements: https://www.ampfutures.com/trading-info/margins/ 2. 800 contracts, with an account value of $12,000,000 - this equals $15,000 per ES (Full Exchange Margins Requirement - a lot more $ margin requirement than required at AMP) - with the same Risk at AMP as if you had the full 12Mil with us. So this max position limit will not be approved until you deposit more funds with us. To get started, with your current account balance we will set your max position to: 300 lots Once we get more experience with your trading strategy, we will review and adjust as needed. 3. Max. Click Size (max order quantity per order) is 100. 4. ES is alot different market than CL. Which is why we can be more aggressive with the day trade margins on ES. Can not be the same level of risk tolerance across all the board. What is your previous Max. Position Size on CL ? You Replied..... This is not at all what was advertised to me in repeated phone conversations, with Daniel and others. This is very disappointing and misleading. I was guaranteed $800 per contract on my initial wire and max order quantity of 1000 per order (not that I even intend to use it all, but that was what was promised). Now I am being limited to 300 lots with a max order of 100, a significant reduction. $6000 per lot, I can get that anywhere. There is no point for me to stay if that is what I’m getting. It’s not worth it. I only gave you my maximum lot size in a particular account. I have a few accounts. I have held 600 contracts in an account 1/10th the size of that $12m, this is not the point. My sole reason for opening an account was to utilize the $800 intraday margin, as advertised to me on multiple hour phone conversations I have had with two of your agents, one of whom was Daniel M. These promises are going back on, not after a few months, but literally the DAY of the deposit. Thanks, I will be reassessing my relationship going forward. AMP Risk Management replied..... yes, this is the standard margins, but you are asking for max. margins - limits and saying you are going to use them. For us to offer these low margins, we need to have proper top level risk controls in place. You have never placed any trades with us...and all that you say you want to max out margins. As previously stated, we are ok with Exchange-Traded Futures Risk management...and once we see your trading activity, we will be able to re-evaluate the current top level risk limits. So you understand from our side, you can OPEN a 2,250 lot on ES which is $112,500 per point or only 16 points before you lose your entire account balance. The current market conditions are moving 2-5% per day (min. 40 points per day). This is not acceptable risk levels. Any firm in these current conditions will not allow these low day trade margins with no max, contract limit. We will work with you to get to a mutually acceptable risk levels, but with out any experience with your trading, this is the limits we will accept to get started.
It is extremely unprofessional for you to be posting private email communications of an account holder without first asking, especially when that email communication contains personal information. I dont see how what you have communicated at all contradicts what I have said. You advertise $800 per contract above $100k account value; you are saying that I will only get $6000 per contract. This is dishonest, especially considering the insistence from your end over 3 or 4 phone conversations that I will receive $800 per before the money went through.
This is the full story....we are fully transparent. There is no personal information in this communication. This is a general risk management process that is done to properly set risk limits for our customers. P.S. Not sure why you started this thread...and then asking why we replying to it.
Not sure what is up with you, but I never said that. I said, its unprofessional of you to post the *private* email communication between a client and a broker without first asking. Is that not clear? The fully story is, you guys repeatedly told me that I will receive $800 per contract (ask Daniel M., who has been in contact with you and was trying to reverse your $6000 per contract limitation), and that AMP will not deviate from this. You should probably make that clearer to customers, that you are very unlikely to give such levels of margin if an account holder has size exceeding 100k. It is dishonest, and it becomes frighteningly dishonest when you cant even acknowledge it and instead resort to dumping completely unrelated personal communications into a public thread.
It is not unlikely, that is our default setup. All of your communications with customer service team have been about maximum contracts allowed which was alerted to the risk management team. With this in mind, we presented you a custom risk limit profile. We did not say no, we said...this is the limits we will start with and as we learn your trading strategy we will make adjustments as needed. It would be reckless for us to ignore your communications about only caring about max. contracts allowed and let you trade on day 1 with the default margin limits.
That is strange, considering that this is only my second email that even brings up the intraday margin. Also, I made it clear numerous times I would not be using max size or get even close to it, but that I wanted to confirm that what you advertise is what is reality (which you guys told me numerous times on the phone that is the case). Only today after the wire was received did you suddenly limit me to $6000 per contract.