100% increase in one day with one day notice. this shows how much disrespectful that IB has towards it's smaller customers or all it's customers. it says it's makes most of it's money market making or prop trading which means making money off traders..trading against clients. period
this is like posting in a message board, you are just an individual,,,nobody gives about receiving or giving 'respect' i don't give a f#ck about respect. in this business, the market is the boss. 'quote' i only respect the market.
<i>"In the mean time I will be happy with IB; I won't need a bunch of backup brokers in case my broker goes out of business. IB's culture suits me and a bunch of other experience traders here at et and elsewhere. It doesn't suit fools, whingers, twxts and other brokers shills. The more of those fools and undercapitalised losers leave IB and fxck off elsewhere the happier I will be..."</i> IB has its strengths and weaknesses. True for any broker out there, zero exceptions. One of their weaknesses is lack of cutting-edge risk control for clients. If the primary business focus at IB was to provision futures clients, they would be running software that monitored every account and mark-to-market value at every moment in time, real-time. Accounts running high risk would automatically flip to the top and be red flagged for broker intervention. That's what most/all of the brokers do who offer day-trade margins. Do you honestly think those brokers who offer $500 day margin levels are stupid? Or are you smart enough to realize (and man enough to admit here in public) that they rely on cutting edge software AND manpower monitoring it to keep traders from blowing out huge margin deficits? I trade emini futures every day, too. That's all I trade, so there is no need for a service that includes stocks, etc. I personally would never tolerate a broker who whips margin levels around at whim like IB does, but I understand why they do that. It's because they offer a discount service which suits many specific needs but does not include primary focus on each trader's need, particularly futures day-traders. If IB was the end-all, be-all... there'd only be one broker in existence. Right? A good, skilled, professional emini trader can make $10,000 to $50,000 profit from a $5,000 account balance in one calendar month. Yes, you read that right. Same as a prop trader can plunk down $5k and get huge margin from their house. Each <b>skilled trader</b> knows how to safely manage their margin, or they quickly perish. For sure we don't require our broker to handcuff us with $4+k margin per ER2 contract. Those are the very people who fuel my account more days than not, in all reality. To each their own. IB is a fine broker service, but not even near superior for all.
I doubt there is many of these guys around austin. In fact, in my time of of trading S&P futures (since they began in 1982), I've known exactly none. That said, I'll grant that I don't know all futures traders, and that there could be someone out there doing this. But stop and think about this: one month like this, and you no longer have to have these type of margins. So what IB does with their margin is largely irrelevant...at least it is to me. I'm not anywhere close to trading at day trade margins....hell, I'm not even close to trading at overnight margins. But just so that you know, I trade with IB for a number of different reasons, none of which has to do with day trade margins. One of them has to do with the fact that my funds are insured while not being used as margin. That is not true at any futures only firms. Call me conservative. But in a time when people are losing money because institutions fail....conservative may not be so bad. For those "skilled" traders out there, yesterday you should have been able to make $2500 without problem trading a one lot. Do lthat every day during this volatility, and you're doing what austin says skilled traders can do...with a one lot. OldTrader
I thought that there are real traders here and it looks like, that lot of people have max 5-10k acct. If you don't have money do not trade. The way how to loose acct is to be under capitalize.
real traders have only 5% margin. a 10K account gives your $200,000 in buying power. futures is 5% professionals use leverage