I applied for the forms to open an account with Lightspeed Professional Trading. They came a couple of days ago and consisted of 33 pages of small print legalize that I am supposed to read and agree to. I haven't opened a daytrading account in about 4 years and so the idea that I have to read and understand all this crap, then agree to it and then send them 28K to open a daytrading account is a bit overwhelming, considering the fact that I know next to nothing about the brokerage firm. Consequently, I have a couple of questions that I would like to know the answer to. 1. Do brokers like IB now send their prospective clients forms that are this long and complicated. and 2. What would you do in my case. Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
IB has an electronic, online application process to open an account. If you printed up all the steps and the associated addendum's and such, it would easily equal or exceed what another broker has sent you. It's just the nature of the business.
Man, times have changed. In the past, I had brokerage accounts with 5 different brokers and never saw any thing like this. My son-in-law is a lawyer and I wouldn't even ask him to read all of this crap for fear he would give me bad advice. Furthermore, no one at the SEC, or any other place that I know of, checks this stuff to see if the person who signs the account application is fairly represented. I can't even get the SEC to answer my emails so I can find out if there are any client complaints about Lightspeed or Penson. Thanks for the reply
You can do a FINRA search to see what type of disciplinary actions or arbitration may have been launched against these firms since they are both licensed with the proper regulatory agencies.
LightSpeed uses a Direct Access trading platform. It is a large step up from your average point and click systems through online brokers. It is required to provide extensive operating agreements to not only protect the company, but the individual as well. Firms such as LightSpeed should be checked to see if the capital contributed is protected by the FDIC.
I've cleared through Penson from 2003 to 2006 with no problems. I've also used Lightspeed on/off for about 6 months about 1 year ago - personally, the software is not appropriate for my style of trading (some akward behaviour when it came to stop orders and NBBO... charting is poor and order management is difficult. Mainly though I never really felt like their stop order/order management was up to par). Lightspeed customer service is top notch though, would recommend them for that reason alone. Mike