I don't think there are any. Or at least any that know what they're doing. If you find one please post it up on this thread. If you look up the members of the various futures exchanges, it's hard to find any members in the Los Angeles or even the entire SoCal area. I remember finding one address that was in Beverly Hills, but I think upon more research, they were more of a quatitative operation.
You can get your size up alot faster than trying to build your own account. And if your at a good shop, you should have access to extremely fast news via market news, bloomberg, and/or reuters terminals, direct lines to the exchanges and full time on-site tech support. You also trade at member rates. Plus futures prop shops are not the anywhere near the same as equities "pro" shops. True prop, you don't risk any of your own capital. You trade the company's money, they take all the risk, and you operate on a percentage profit split.
mschey, Do you ever take a look at the 'Pro Firms' forum? Alot of the threads in there these days are about futures prop firms. There are countless futures firms in Chicago and London, and they do very well (both the firms and traders) for not making any sense!
Bump. I wonder why no one opens up a futures shop in LA. Would love to move back there at some point from Chicago.
My point is this, why would you give up the tax benefits gained through trading futures by trading futures with an LLC. At top tax rates you are looking at paying 15% more, doesn't make sense to me. Then again, my assumption is that you are going to make money, and well, 9 out of 10 probably won't.