Velocity sold to Institutional Liquidity LLC. Stay or leave?

I do not know anything about Institutional Liquidity LLC. Got this email just now



September 27, 2013

NOTICE OF TRANSFER OF YOUR FUTURES ACCOUNT ON October 11, 2013

Dear Valued Customer:

Please take notice that Velocity Futures, LLC (“Velocity”) is discontinuing its business as a futures commission merchant and is becoming an introducing broker to Institutional Liquidity LLC (“ILQ”). Therefore, and in accordance with Appendix C and Section 19 of your Customer Account Agreement, Velocity has elected to assign your Customer Agreement and transfer your futures account and your Customer Agreement to Institutional Liquidity LLC (“ILQ”), 3777 Sparks DR SE Suite 120, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, Tel. 1-800-619-5007. Transfer of your Customer Agreement will occur on October 11, 2013, whereupon any funds or open positions in your account will be transferred to ILQ, and your Velocity account will be closed. All platforms, passwords, and access codes for your accounts will be transferred to provide you with the least interruption of your trading. After the transfer Velocity’s portals will remain operational for you to access any past account information.

Velocity and ILQ have been working closely together over the past eight months to ensure that there is no interruption to your customer experience. ILQ has purchased Velocity’s entire data center in Chicago, all of its computer systems, and has employed numerous employees from Velocity, thus assuring that ILQ will be able to provide all of the platforms and the same great service that Velocity provided to its customers. In addition, ILQ will make available all of your historical customer statements and IRS forms in its customer portal. ILQ will also begin offering you FOREX in addition to Futures utilizing your same account. Also, all commission agreements and colocation arrangements will be the same for your account with ILQ.

You are not required to accept the proposed transfer and instead may direct Velocity to liquidate your account and return your funds (if any) to you or another futures commission merchant.

If you elect to have your account liquidated and the funds transferred to you or to another futures commission merchant, as described above, please contact: Qi Shen, Operations Department, Velocity Futures, LLC, 5373 W. Alabama St., Suite 600, Houston, Texas 77057, Tel. 713-490-7600. You may also send an email regarding liquidation or transfer of funds to another FCM to Qi Shen at qshen@velocityfutures.com.

Please send any other response to this notice, including any objections, questions, or comments, in writing by e-mail to operations@velocityfutures.com. Please mark the subject of your e-mail as “Response to Transfer Notice.”

Failure to respond to this Notice by 5 o’clock p.m. on October 10, 2013 will be deemed to be your consent to transfer your account to ILQ.

We would like to thank you for being a Velocity customer, and as such we have carefully selected ILQ to accept your business. ILQ has recently increased it’s capital to over 30 times the net capital of Velocity and has an exceptional management team to provide your business with same great service Velocity has provided since 2002.

About ILQ:

ILQ, based in Grand Rapids, MI, is regulated in the US as a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) and Futures Commission Merchant (FCM). ILQ puts its financial and regulatory responsibilities above all else, led by its CEO, Jason Tanner, a well-respected former employee of the NFA.



Very Truly Yours,

Velocity Futures, LLC

(Velocity Futures LLC - also doing business as: CLEAR CHICAGO GROUP, CLEARCHICAGO GROUP, FUTURES BROKER.COM, FUTURESBROKER.COM, and VELOCITY CLEARING)
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Regards,
Velocity Futures, LLC
operations@velocityfutures.com

This message may contain confidential information and is intended for specific recipients unless explicitly noted otherwise. If you have reason to believe you are not an intended recipient of this message, please delete it and notify the sender. This message does not constitute a contract or guarantee. Unencrypted electronic mail is not secure and the recipient of this message is expected to provide safeguards from viruses and pursue alternate means of communication where privacy or a binding message is desired. (57.1744561)

 

I don't know what to do. I got same letter. I have a few $ money at velocity. The cheap sierra charting with TT data makes it great. What will happen?

 

I was looking at ILQ's website. They seem to be a forex shop, adding futures business. I will probably feel like a guinea pig if I stay...

 

nothing will happen, your stuff will more than likely remain as it was... i hope they retain the VF portal, their tech was the strongest selling point... but tech wise, and execution, who knows what will change...

overall, ILQ is an FX broker... stronger balance sheet than VF ever had though... who knows why they sold off ... I mean, "transferred" the assets to ILQ...

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/FCM_ncap.aspx?entityId=mHkWa1pKWwk=

 

Velocity was always severly undercapitalized. Chances are you are in better shape with the change from a counterparty point of view because when you were with Velocity you were in horrible shape.

I kept a small account there years ago and was happy with the tech, the service and the people. By 2008 I tightend up on counterparty risk and had the small sum wired to IB. It is my understanding that there are legitimate FOREX houses out there today and this may be one of them. In the day there were none and I've never left a penny at any of the stand alone FOREX firms although I did trade some through Bache & Co. when I lived in London.

Bottom line is you will probably trade up to a stronger counterparty and notice no change in execution. But hey ... lol ... who knows!

 

I would take a look at the reviews on this site for Deep Discount Trading if you are looking for an alternative. They clear through Crossland and their service is both friendly and efficient; except for GC very competitive margins, wide range of platforms and feeds on an unbundled basis. You put together the package you like and the all-in price is competitive with Velocity. But read the reviews. You will be impressed that they get very high marks from all their clients.

I want to stress that my experience with Velocity was good ... very good. I only left during difficult times because I wanted a better balance sheet. They were good guys running a good firm but they just never had any significant amount of capital in the firm.

 

I hear you about DDT. I corresponded to Howard sometime ago, but never bothered to switch. Now may be a good time. I wrote back to VF asking if their customer portal will remain the same. If yes, I might just stay here. Hopefully VF will write back soon.

I really like the VF portal, specially the Leader board. I am not a big player by any means, and have my own share of "troubles". But I have learned a lot looking at other people's P&L... what style works consistently, and what doesn't

 

Howard is a great guy and runs a great IB with the right clearing firm but I can certainly see the appeal of the Leader Board. Very cool and informative feature. My bet is they will keep it all in place. That said I find Deep Discount a great place to trade.

 

Its sad news, VF's customer service was exceptional .

Hey Darth do let us know what VF's response is on keeping the Leadership board.

Dale from VF if you still hang out here may be you could answer ?

thx

 

Let's see what ILQ can offer. If services remain the same, there's no need to change for me...