Bob Green at end of call says "Any firm is potential target for the threatening regulatory developments". It helps if its a member of a regulatory body, but doesn't gurantee its long term survival.
Would like to see Don Bright name 6 firms he referred to as major players in current prop trading environment.
In this discussion of leverage extension given by prop firms to traders, it might help to keep in mind that these leverage extensions over Reg T's 4:1 were not the prop firms making but were in fact, created by the SEC in the 70's or 80's in response to requests by exchanges to enable their members to provide more liquid markets. I stumbled across the article a while back. It was kinda fascinating - chronicling the "birth" of risk based margin haircuts which enables the clearing firm to extend greater than 4:1 leverage to registered exchange member firms.
Uhh, yes there are. Why don't you give IB a call and ask them. They will be more then happy to tell you.
I knew about this a week ago... I have talked to Bear and IB, both stated there are no minimums beyond the req to carry a margin account and DEA approval for the broker in question. It's moot in my case, but there is no 500k limit. I know Mav, you got the skinny on this development in 1971, before puts were listed, right?