Thinking about opening an account either with CyberTrader or IB to trade E Minis; anyone have any input as to the better firm for futures? Thanks Dominic
Thanks; have you tried CyberTrader before? I have been with them for 6 years trading equities and thinking about trying futures; not sure how they stack up against IB? Are you able to trade 24/7 pretty much with IB on the futures?
Neither one. Bad deals. I think cybertrader has around 3000.00 margins. They don't have discounted margins like their competitors. It's been a while since I checked into their margin fee's, so I could be wrong. But that's what cybertrader use to charge when they first started offering emini's. Plenty of brokers offerering 500.00 competitive margins. Not sure why other brokers are charging more than their competition for contracts. Seems silly to me. But maybe there is a reason to charge more than 500.00.
A strong argument can be made that firms allowing only $500 margins to cover volatile futures contracts are potentially allowing for over leverage and anyone who can only afford to place $500 in margin shouldn't be trading futures. IB offers 50% of exchange margin, virtually 24 hour trading a stable platform, excellent fills, interest on funds etc etc. It also doesn't hurt that the firm's capital base is very strong.
IB is pretty much the gold standard around here, certainly for electronically trade futures. I don't think it is an advantage for your broker to offer $500 intraday margin for ES. You might be tempted to use it one day. Also, it ramps up the chances of the firm blowing out and leaving your funds in limbo. There is no SIPC for futures.
Another big plus for IB is its breadth of products. I don't believe any other broker has as many tradeable products at such great prices. I've been watching the DAX, DJSTOXX, Hang Seng and Nikkei. It's just great that I can choose a trading schedule around my daily schedule. Also another happy ButtonTrader user. I'm not sure what I would do without it.
Yeah, you might have a good point here, but not all futures are equally volatile so you could make the margins instrument dependent. I also really don't think that $1000 per emini contract which TS Securities allows is that dangerous. I have been considering TS Securities recently because of that and if you guys really want to keep me as a client you probably need to go their way too. Moreover, as a libertarian, I really don't like too strict limitations.