I went down to the County Clerks office to file a 'DBA' Doing Business As for a sole proprietorship I would like to set up to open an IB 'Friends and Family' account. According to IB and many other resources, registration is not required for under $25M in AUM and I believe in NY 5 clients max. The dumb government worker told me that I need to be registered regardless (Series 7) if I'm managing OPM of any kind in NYC. Is this bullsh*t? How do I get around this for a small account for family/friends? LegalZoom/websites states it will file directly with NYC county clerk with no need to deal with the clerks office, but if I can't file online-how can they?? Appreciate any help
I don't have an answer, but I would be curious to know what the answer is because my understanding is you cannot have an active Series 7 unless you work for a Broker Dealer. So you would be in a classic catch 22 if you need Series 7 to manage OPM.
I don't have a good experience with the County Clerks in NYC office either. They are slow and don't know much. So, I think you need to have a counter argument before you go there again. In regard to registration (series 7), it depends whether you trade equity or futures. I am not sure about the equity but if you trade futures as a CPO you may get exemption from series 3. Look at this summary sheet http://www.nfa.futures.org/registration/easyReferenceGuidePart4.pdf or for more info: http://www.nfa.futures.org/registration/cpo.asp I am also curios about what others may suggest in response to your post.