50 cent said: That may be true when comparing IB with Global but I'm certainly tempted to find a broker that doesn't hit me with 8 times the margin of other brokers when entering a trade 3 minutes before the market opens. That's just plain ridiculous. IB's policy severely limits the number of contracts I can trade and that in turn limits the money I can make trading. Margin may not be everything but it's pretty darn important from my perspective unless I'm missing something.
It would be interesting to know just how many contracts you are talking about. One? Two? Three?... BTW... you should of known IB's margin rules before opening an account with them. Therefore you wouldn't be griping about it...
i think that the point you are missing is, that if you have so little money in the account, your account will be wiped out anyway on your first random losing streak. that is why margin is not important - because your account should be better funded anyway. this whole $300/$500 margin thing is a nothing but a sales gimmick. you need much more money in the account to stay alive anyway. i use global as a backup account. for that it is perfect - but for nothing else. definitely not with that piece of junk j-trader. hell, even ameritrade has a better platform these days!
you know if you seriously consider switching brokers to global, i would actually recommend tradestation instead. they're a decent broker and have a very decent platform too. they waive the platform fee if you trade a certain volume, as well. if they have $500 margin as you mentioned, then you should seriously consider using them and not global. they're one of the best out there.
Version77 wrote: Nonsense. When I opened my account with IB I wasn't planning on entering orders before the market opened, so their ridiculous policy of requiring over-night margin on orders entered 3 minutes before the market opens never came up.
50 cent wrote: Tradestation has $1,000 day trading margin and it doesn't go into effect until the market opens, same as IB. I guess I need a broker other than Global or Tradestation. I would think a broker's over-night margin requirement would be important to those that trade futures while the market is closed.
50 cent wrote: I don't dispute that I should have enough funds in my account to cover losses but how much is enough? IB requires $3938 margin to enter an ES trade three minutes before the market opens and $1,969 after the market opens. So how much should I have in my account to trade each ES contract? I think that $3938 is way more than I need to safely trade one ES contact and $500 is too low.
i've been with global since july this year and have no complaints. i dropped the free j trader and went for turbo trader which costs $50 per month. commission quoted to me for account balance over $10k was $4.80 per round trip including exchange fees. commissions for accounts under $10k is $6 per round trip. a bit high but the offset is $500 margins i've been contemplating to change too. the only reason being that they don't provide charting software and im using esignal right now. somehow, i feel esignal is not worth it. if i can find a cheaper charting software with data feed for scalping, i will stick with global. if not, i'll probably move to advantage futures(still not sure).
Hi loanfinder, Do you know of any brokers besides Global that will not impose over-night margin requirements on future trades that are placed 3 minutes before the market opens?