Parent website is www.fortis.com To ask about rates, call +44 (0) 20 7444 8800 and ask to speak to someone in the commercial department, explain you are interested in deals for local traders.
Firts of all j trader. The system is very very flexible for trading a multitude of markets - I have acces to pretty much anything on the planet. However if you do any scalping or very fast trading, there are one or two frustrating bits. I use the dome (depth of market ) screen to trade. changing volume is a pain. One cannot use the scroll wheel to move the prices up or down like x trader. You have to go away from the prices and down to a button at the top or bottom, which is extremely poor. For putting in stops, one just right mouse clicks which is great. The problem is the stops are locally held, which is very bad, since it places an undue burden on your connection, and you cannot put a stop in and walk away confident that you get filled, since if you loose connection, you are stuffed - x trader keeps the stops on the server or if the exchange allows, on the the exchange server which is by far the best. As for speed, it is definately slower than, say, a eurex feed of a miss, but I would expect that since it goes through a series of servers and other connections before getting to the market. All in all, I only use it when I have to to get into different markets. I also use it as a bit of a hard test. I am currently trading the e minis with it. Before I hard wire to the exchange, I want to make sure I can trade it and make money. Since I can, with an inferior connection, via a third party, using checking software, it gives me a strong level of comfort, knowing that the expense of the hard wire ( I live over a 100 miles from london, so I have to pay alot of money for the hook up, like 15,000 pounds a year) will easily be covered by the extra edge I will get from a faster system ( looking at 200 - 250 milliseconds, in other words, all the difference between filled and fucked) As for gni, we use them within a gruop structure where there are about a dozen other traders and our volumes are not insignificant, which gives us ok rates. None the less I still feel they could be more competative for simple futures trading, so I would perhaps recommend you look at say fortis, who are pretty agressive, or SEB, who want to get a hold in the markets. But it does depend on what volume you do. Less than 50,000 contracts a montha nd you will struggle to get a decent rate. I hope this helps - feel free to come back to me with more questions. I do have one for you - why do you not like advanced trading? I traded there for about 5 years and found them very good - the desk fee is pretty high, but clearing was never too bad and the facilities were good. Of course the office sucked, but hey, we were arbers from the floor - for a lot of those guys a bale of straw in the middle of a room was furniture!!!! Regards E
Thanks E, very informative. am I right in thinking you are a group out in Essex trading the curve ? re : advanced, I use to work for the company next door - i know about furniture, I had a seat with only 3 out of 4 casters.. if i leant back I was a gonna - so much for health and safety... a couple of colleagues at the time had worked next door and remarked it was equally as bad, that is all. Kap
You had three casters? - bloody luxury! No, I trade out in deepest Norfolk near the coast on my own, suffering constant interuption from kids. As for trading the curve, I fear this stratedgy would be a little bit beyond me - I could hardly trade roll over with out fucking it up somewhere. I just have a little system I knocked out on CQG after too many beers which does me ok - I just buy em and sell em, that's all. Trading the dax a little, but I think will end up buying a seat for the e minis - they look pretty sexy to me. And you?
~I'm over in West London, running a small fund for some old colleagues I met along the way . I play around with most instruments with the "anything that moves" strategy. But have become a larger participant in the E-minis over with its decent depth and explosive volatility ! - again I am concerned with speed of execution - latancy can be an issue with these puppies - am I right in thinking x-trader through GNI allows stops to be placed on GNI's servers ?