In other words, you gave them control of your PC; they can't "take over" your PC without your consent.
In the link (FCMs), why do some have zeros (0s) under customer seg required and customer amount??? Like Tradestation? Don't all who broker futures, (at least in part) have to have SOME segregated funds?
I've been there almost 5 years with no real complaints. Fills are great; oftentimes (probably 40% or more) I get price improvement through MBTX route.
FCMs are not required to segregate funds if the "customer" is a member of an exchange, an affiliated person, CTA, CPO, bank, fund, another FCM, IB, or clearing organization. Take note, this is not a complete list.
GTS - Yes, that is correct altho I know of cases where hackers have hijacked a person's computer that's not what I was referring to with MBT. Just to add a little more fuel - I trade with a group & 1 guy still uses them as he gets free Level2 & has invested in software integrated with NAVIGATOR. He frequently gets quotes that are behind the market (we're taking seconds/fractions of seconds). This has resulted in bad fills which we could verify via identical trade entered at identical time by 2 traders using everything equal on our end. I speculate the cause is either or both of the following: 1) their feed (its not direct to the exchanges 2) their setup; i.e. how their software functions including the integration thereof.
Hello DHOHHI - Regarding your price improvements - I'm assuming your talking on stock trades using limit orders; e.g. Buy XYZ @ $50 & you get a fill at $49.98, right? If so, I believe this adds ammunition to our assertion that MBT quotes & executions are often "late." They are not like IB, who trade on exchange floors via Timber Hill (e.g. at BSX they often improve option trades via their penny trades). Can you expand on your price improvements & MBT's trading (every online broker I know of has routing software - they have to - so its no big deal.
There are three big issues with MBT and why I (a current MBT customer) am looking around for another broker. 1) Their quote systems have not been able to keep up during big volume spikes that have occurred recently. They will get stuck, then "blank out" for periods of time lasting up to 5-7 seconds. Luckily I have another platform running at all time, so this really didn't effect me. This has happened about a dozen times in the past year. They say that they have rolled out new capacity for quotes, but there have still been outages. 2) As mentioned before, they can lose your overnight positions. I've seen this happen three times in the past 2 months. 3) Customer service is horrible. Takes about 4 calls to get someone with a clue who can help you and doesn't have a horrible attitude. I once called when they lost all of my positions and the guy tried to act as if it were somehow my fault. On that day, it took about 2 hours to get through on the phone to someone. Honestly, I can deal with the quotes outages and software quirks. What I cannot deal with is the horrible customer service. There's just no excuse for that.
re: 2 - It happened to me once and that was due to Penson not having updated positions. You do understand that they clear through Penson I assume. re: 3 - MBT customer service is among the best out there. Then again I rarely use it but if you have a problem I suggest you use the online instant chat. Not sure why you had such a hard time determining positions. You can pull up all trades from the current day and given your existing positions, if any, from the prior day it's easy to know what you hold at the end of the day (and start of the following day).