my portfolio has grown pretty well so far so i think I'm ready to make the next move and make this a true profession. so far I have been trading as a personal trader on a personal account with interactive brokers. I feel its time to move up. I know i need to incorporate and I may need to upgrade my trading platform. Is there benefit to moving on from interactive brokers towards bigger companies? any advice on making this transition would be greatly appreciated. I'm not opening a hedge fund but I do want to be a professional personal trader. there isn't much info out there about the business side of this process so any suggestions or even a point in the right direction of some good info would be a great help.
When you say 'make the next move', what do you mean exactly? There are plenty of professional traders trading their own accounts through IB. Do you need a prop or pro arrangement? What is a 'professional personal trader', and why couldn't a 'professional personal trader' trade through IB?
Yes, keep your account at Interactivebrokers. No one knows what kind of carnage may hit the little brokers in the coming months. If you are trying to save a little on commission, you may wake up some day very sorry. IB has many built-in protections against economic disaster. See what happened to Lehman? And what is happening to MS and GS? Remember Refco? I think IB is about the best place for you to be now.
Even if you stay at IB take a look here: http://www.greencompany.com/ You may or may not need to incorporate. A lot depends on things like health insurance, retirement plans, and paying or not paying self-employment taxes. Jack
I was thinking I may need to find a prime broker or some sort of more sophisticated company. I plan on trading with bigger shares and probably useing more margin and I just want to be sure I'm using the best possible broker/platform. being that i have no experience with other brokers I don't know what to expect or look for. as far as incorporating goes I need to compare the benefits of going both routes.
The only DVP trades they clear thru your prime account are equities and equity options. They won't clear futures or fx trades done at other brokers. Also the charge for prime services will increase your total cost of trading: IB charges a $1.00 per line item processing fees to all your way transactions. You need minimum 100k to have even consider it.
That you are talking about more margin tells me you should downgrade to an Etrade account. Or Muriel Seibert.
why is that? I feel I have done well with margin so far. If I do stay with ib I will definitely apply for there portfolio margin as I use reg t as of now... i also want to have several accounts with different margin restrictions.