Hi all, I'm currently looking to switch to a new future broker that doesn't have ridiculous margin requirement on the ES. I've been with IB for the last 13 years and the reason why I'm still with them is that I didn't want to re-write the OMS portion of my application to use a new API. But now, with a day-trading margin of more than 16k for the ES, while the CME overnight margin is 10.8k, it's like IB doesn't want traders to use them to day-trade futures. I'm not looking for broker offering 300-400$ day-trading margin, but between 16000$ and 400$, I can't imagine that I wouldn't be able to find something. I do have very specific requirements/needs: Mandatory - API for basic order entry and portfolio management - Availability of a Paper trading/sim trading environment with live market data - Accept Business Canadian account - DMA on CME - Competitive commissions on future (ES) - Not off-shore (physically located in US or Canada) - No ridiculous day-trading margin on ES - Don't require to reconnect each day to the trading server (persistent login) Not important - Good customer service (I had to call IB like 1-2 times in the last 13 years). - Market data feed quality (cause I'm using IQFeed) - API supported language (I can manage to code in different language, although anything close to C, C++ would be nice) - API support market data (cause I'm using IQFeed) Your suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks.
www.cqg.com www.tradingtechnologies.com and www.rithmic.com have api. There is a list of brokers on those sites.
Given your requirements, have you looked into Tradovate? Lower than IB margins, and have a REST API https://api.tradovate.com/
Tradovate is a good choice for many reasons (very interesting commission structure, low margins for US futures, and now is part of Ninja Trader Brokerage that acquired also Transact FCM and Infinity) Bracket orders are server side* with CGQ order routing In all other trading/charting softwares bracket orders are held in your local machine Charting software is intuitive and a bit old style, but it works nicely *http://blog.tradovate.com/managing-orders-with-multiple-brackets
Correct me if I am wrong but only with CQG own trading platforms bracket orders are server side With Sierra Chart, Quantower, Multicharts are local machine I am referring only to CQG not Rithmic or others
Dumb question perhaps, but why should a broker offer a more generous margin to day traders? It isn't any less risky. I'm fairly sure the exchange doesn't offer a lower margin. In my personal opinion changing brokers because they aren't offering you enough margin is like going to a different gun shop because the first one won't sell you enough ammo to kill yourself with... 16k margin is 14:1 which means you would have been wiped out on three days in 2020, and four times in 2008. GAT
Daytraders don't have the overnight risk, which can be considerable. Risk also depends from the qualifications of the trader. So that should be taken in consideration. An idiot that has no clue about trading is a higher risk than a seasoned daytrader with a proof of his qualifications. Even with a much higher leverage for the seasoned trader. For your gun shop analogy: my wife driving a car at 50mph is 10 times more dangerous than me driving at 100mph. She already crashed two cars, while I never had any damage at all while driving 100 times more miles in total. I am beyond 1 millions miles in total. Should I be forced to drive 50mph because someone else is crashing cars at that speed?