Don, with as much money as you have at GS, why would they not let you trade futures? Or are you saying as a firm you simply don't want to make them available. Bob trades the e-mini right? Who does he clear through to make those trades?
The CME seat is in Bob's personal name. He gets a daily cap rate, so it makes sense for him to trade them. I trade them a bit as well, but pay $4.00 RT - too damn much. We simply haven't bothered to negotiate with GS for pricing, since we don't do any volume with them. Don
Which clearing firms offer a daily cap on their emini commissions to exchange members? Something new to me as I have only heard of monthly and annual futures commissions caps.
Sorry Don, but there is no daily fee cap on emini trading for CME members. The $50 Globex fee cap (200 sides) for eminis was ended as of August 31, 2009 and replaced with a discount schedule. http://www.cmegroup.com/company/files/Q32009-Fee-Change.pdf
How much does he lose per day... on a good day? Why trade the emini (instead of the big one) if a guy is good and is well capitalized?
Because for S&P 500 (unlike, say, currency futures) the volume in E-minis is an order of magnitude larger than in "big" contracts.