not according to the title of the tread and the questions you put forward. And if you want reliability, why not look at CFTC FCM reports and check out the financial status of the various brokers. Why stop at velocity? What about Mirus clearing thru RCG or Dorman, both FCM's that are far better capitalized than Velocity? Or Amp? Or transact? The benefit of IB is that your funds not used for margin are SIPC insured; most every other futures broker can say that. So if you want reliability and safety, you have many options.
trouble is I live in London and don't know much about these brokers or the American system, so rely on feedback from other people. But yes, I guess there are other brokers...
IB is a good broker if you want to trade stocks, options and futures. If you only want to trade futures there are other brokers that have better commission rates for moderate volume traders. IB's unbundled commissions start at $4.70 RT and drop at specified volume breaks. Transact Futures charges $3.76 RT with a minimum of 274 RTs a month. Lightspeed Trading charges $3.30 RT with no volume minimum and $65.00 a month futures data feed charge. If you will be doing low futures volume or will have inactive months, then IB is a better choice than brokers with specified volume/fee minimums.
Thanks Jeb, just the sort of info I was after. I was also looking into Velocity Futures as they have quoted me $4.73 RT for E mini S&P and I get free data feed and free X-Trader platform and no minimum volume. This sounds pretty good so I'm just trying to find out a bit more about them. Are they well thought of in US?
Go with Infinity they are the IB of TransAct so same free data feed, same platform no monthly minimums. The service is a heck of alot better than IBs.
Velocity Futures quoted me an all-in round turn rate of $3.98 per ES contract. No minimum monthly trading requirements. However, that's using Ninja Trader as the Front End Platform and not X-Trader. With X-Trader it's $4.73 per RT. Another firm I like is Go Futures. They charge $4.30 per RT on ES contracts. No broker can be all things to all people. Ask yourself what is important to you in a broker and then take a little time to look around and see which broker meets those requirements. Don't rush the choice of a broker.
Thanks for your help. I checked Infinity Futures on this site for ratings and it has mixed reviews so I'm not sure about them.
Every broker has mixed reviews. There are always idiots who complain and whine about their broker for no apparent reason. Make a list of things that are important to you (fees, margin req's, personal service, product availability, platform, connectivity, available (backup) dataservices etc.) and you can quickly get a short list of 2-3 brokers that fit your personal requirements.