Anybody here trading on the floor? B-3 memberships last sale was $24,000. Some people are expecting a rise in Financial Futures trading due to the end of QE. Any insight or caveats to holding one of these seats? The seat prices are a reflection of activity in those pits. Think you can make a living with that membership?
The GIM only gives you treasuries(maybe fed funds, I'm not sure). Treasury opts are the only thing that still trade on the floor (although less and less). Treasury fut pit is a joke, never comin' back. The only purpose of holding one of those is if you are a market maker in the opts on the floor or you trade heavy volume on the screen, you get discounted exchange fees. at 20k I personally don't think it's a bad investment. buy it and lease it out at 500 a month if it won't save you 500 a month on your treasury commissions, not a bad return on investment, and if it goes up in value all the better. If rates go up and bond trading volumes go back up in theory there should be more demand for them. The treasury market has almost become a joke now though, I worked at what was once the biggest(or second biggest, honestly not sure) treasury prop shop. They went under last year. That market has been a shit trade for a long time.
If you are considering renting it out it may be difficult. Here is the list of the memberships available. http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership-pricing-cbot-memberships-for-lease.html On this list you will see a contact name, Kathy Holloway. She has been helping lease seats for years. It may be worth a call to her to see how easy or hard it would be to lease out a seat.
I'll give her a buzz, thanks. Most seats are 30 seats deep in availability. Also with the b-3, it looks like an unusual sale relative to other tiers. I think some guys are just colluding to shake out the weak holders. I would still have to pay something of a $2,000 app fee that's only good for one month. This prevents people without deep pockets from bottom fishing for seats. Nice yield if you can get it, though.