"In addition to his financial firm, Mr. Wasendorf founded several publications during his career, including SFO â Stocks, Futures and Options, the Official Advocate for Personal Investors, according to a biography on the firmâs website. He also serves on the FCM Advisory Committee of the National Futures Association." http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07...brokerage-collapses-with-200-million-missing/
I thought this article revealed a lot of what their future problems were. http://www.pfgbest.com/about/press/alaronacquisition_dow.asp
"Great Broker! Would recommend them. They've started TV Advertising which I think is always a sign of confidence from a broker looking for new wealth to manage. " That's what Beau Wolinsky wrote about them in the brokers review section just 3 months ago!
Doh! Sorry Blowinski. Hope you didn't take that bet with Atticus... "Great Broker! Would recommend them. PFGBEST has great technology" - bwolinsky April 16, 2012 9:11 PM I am currently using Multicharts to trade at PFG Best, and until the MC8 64bit version there was a connectivity problem that was only corrected after the 64 bit was written. Between my e-signal feed for Multicharts, and the DOM I see in my account, the datafeed of pfg best appears to lag up to 0.2 seconds which was worst case latency estimations when I called to ask about this. I place my orders automatically in a lead account, and those orders get filled at the average price with my autotrading accounts at 1:1 size and 3 units. They have helped me especially create a repoirte with an important business partner, and that's my broker's experience with CTA's at that firm. My broker has made sure that I was always in front of a crowd when I was trading for my CTA, and I've really appreciated the show of support. My commission rates are around $6/rt, and I've considered that to be the basement for beginning traders. Right now I've had a great experience since March 9th 2012 after moving to MC8 64 bit. The connectivity problems were gone after that upgrade eliminated the issue, but since a 64 bit database is not compatible with a 32 bit database I find I'm still using MC7.4.4906 to do my optimizations since the 64 bit version is missing data because the databases aren't compatible. As this relates to pfgbest, I have noticed no lag time with my trading station, and I think if you're into automated trading look into these guys and see what they have to offer, because I've had no technical problems aside from updates that have sometimes come out with bad betas but they usually take care of this problem promptly, and if you've seen doms I find it useful in anticipating price, but I have noticed a 1-3 second lag between DOM on PFG Best and E-signal through Multicharts when it comes to bids and offers and size. I think PFGBest is an amazing broker, and has great technology. Ever since March 9th 2012 I've been happy with the way things are working with them, because it wasn't like I didn't have models that couldn't work, it was that the machine I was using had buggy software between the handshake at Multicharts and PFGBest. They resolved this with 64 bit, and created a bandaid called Stunnel.exe for 32 bit 7.4 users. I've found their technology has done everything I asked it to do. I've had a great experience autotrading with them, and have had no connectivity problems since the 64 bit MC8 beta. While I'm disappointed in the incompatible database issue Multicharts always allows you to revert to a previous version, and I'm hoping to work with them to see about loading my databases onto their computers so they can solve the database compatibility issues that aren't relevant to PFG Best's connectivity now, but they were the only thing from a perfect experience in reliability and the lag I noticed in their quote updates compared to my e-signal feeds in Multicharts. Great Broker! Would recommend them. They've started TV Advertising which I think is always a sign of confidence from a broker looking for new wealth to manage.
It appears that the Robbins World Cup that Beau was talking up as a means to prove his systems has been taken offline as well. PFG appears to have been the sponsor, so I'd assume that they were the executing broker for the various advisors that were listed in the competition. Maybe someone can clear it up...
You don't seem to catch the nuance that before Corzine took over and screwed up what was then a 'medium-sized commodity firm' MF Global was a major presence in listed futures. Spun off from London's Man Group, the company enjoyed a strong reputation as an independent broker. Whom do I like? I think the following clearing firms are good: ADM Investor Services Advantage Futures Dorman Trading Rosenthal Collins Group Knight might even be worth checking out; formerly Penson, now they're back by some real dough...might become a good firm. How about you? Whom do you trust?
Q -- where did the largest loss of seg funds occur? A -- Lehman's London operation ... around three billion US. Segregation works just fine if the money is there. The problem is it is not always in the seg account when the bust happens. I'm not sure why people equate segregation with safety. It only segregates your funds in the bankruptcy and even then only if it has not been stolen, speculated with or, as at Lehman, improperly segregated. About three billion was lost because of sloppy segregation ... not even fraud. Counter party risk is real and there are lots of ways to get bitten in the ass.
Robbins Trading has been a division of PFG for several years now... they sold to PFG some time ago. People often ask me why I demand day-trade margin in my trading accounts, why I would never trade thru any IB that doesn't offer $500 for eminis or $1000 for CL intraday margins. This is exactly why. I want the least possible capital working inside any brokerage account to handle trade size. Non-trading morons like emg with his $100,000 per one (1) ES contract nonsense is just false rhetoric that plants the wrong seed inside impressionable minds. I clear mainly thru Dorman and have no reason to think they are anything other than rock-solid... but I've seen enough in my 12 years at this game to want minimum possible cash exposed for leveraged use.
I have always felt exactly the same way. Why wouldn't I have the bulk of my funds FDIC and/or SIPC insured rather than subject to the vagaries of segregation? if you want to trade ES in 10 lots give 'em six grand ... ok, seven if you're a sport but to leave them $20,000 or worse yet $30,000 is simply a speculation without an upside.