I was propositioned via PM by a salesperson of Alaric. The firm's website does not bestow any confidence whatsoever. Also, the constant mentioning of IB rubs me the wrong way. A confident firm does not have to talk down competitors. Here is how the conversation went: Hey M.W., I saw some of your posts in the forum and I thought I could drop by and introduce myself. My name is Dimitar Kirchev and I am VP of Electronic Trading at Alaric Securities - a broker well known by many pro-traders and investors in London. I just wanted to check if you're looking for a broker. Alaric Securities allows traders to trade US stocks without the PDT rules. We're a regulated true-DMA broker, with access to many execution venues and a great stock-borrow offering of over 5500 symbols usually available for shorting. We also offer customizable leverage and many other perks I'd gladly go over with you. I believe I can offer you better terms than the ones mentioned on our website (which already beat the competition), in case you're interested. If you have any questions you can contact me here, by email (dimitar.kirchev@alaricsecurities.com) or on LinkedIn. P.S.: We recently launched our own trading platform called Hammer. Incredibly flexible and versatile. Our entire trading floor is already using it instead of Lightspeed and the price starts from $30 per month. I could hook you up with a free trial, among many other things. Depending on your account size, trading volume and few other factors I could tailor you a particular deal that blows IB (for instance) out of the water Best regards, Dimitar Kirchev ------------------------------------------------------------- Me: Send a commission schedule, then we can talk. I don't promise any volume whatsoever. But I regularly do clear over a billion USD notional in cash FX per month. But I am open to consider alternatives for equities. I need a list of products and markets you offer access to and a commission schedule, preferably on an excel spreadsheet. -------------------------------------------------------------- Hello again M.W., I'm sending you an excel file with our official commission schedule which you can also check on our website by pressing here. I also included the routes we offer which are also on the website and you can access them here. Unfortunately, I can't list you all the products we offer since the symbols are more than 5500. Pretty much whatever is on the US stock exchange, we offer it. Like already mentioned, these are the official commissions, but I can cut you a much better deal if I have information like account size and potential monthly volume. Alaric Securities already accommodates professional trading groups all over the world and we would like to continue doing so. Which is why we came up with our own unique referral program. I'm attaching it to this message as well so you can check the potential benefits you could have if you were to bring clients/colleagues to us. Let me know if you need any other information or if I can be of any help. Thank you for your time. Best regards, Dimitar Kirchev P.S.: May I ask what kind of FX do you trade? Pair CFDs or real FX? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Me: Sorry, but this is a hard no go for several reasons: 1. I do not conduct business that extends 10:1 overnight leverage to customers which means even my funds are greatly at risk. Being segregated funds does not really matter when funding is tied up for months/years in litigation upon a broker bankruptcy. Your firm cannot survive a large overnight shock to the markets by offering such leverage to clients. 2. The commission rates are not that different from IB. It is disingenuous to compare commission based on 100 shares. The comparison should be by notional value. 3. I am not willing to pay 750 dollars for API access, that is grossly overpriced for a web API. I get it free of charge through IB. 4. Your margin rates are highly unattractive. 5. Most importantly, I DO NOT believe in discriminatory pricing depending on what a broker can get away with certain customers but not others. I am greatly objecting to such business model. 6. Also, I do not have confidence to place funds with a broker operating out of Bulgaria with no faces or names of managing staff or CEO nor any proven history of operation. 7. Lastly, I do not appreciate the disparaging of the competition such as IB.
What I also found weird was that the sales rep tried to push his firm's strength in electronic execution but then on the website they show a WEB API???
750$/month for an API!!! Holy cow... I received the same solicitation email, but I guess everybody on ET also received it.
I don't mind the likes of Robert Morse offering clients to contact him for services, rendered by his firm. But sending unsolicited PMs to pitch a product is not the way to go. 750 is not for a direct access or sophisticated API but for a web API, mind you. That is grossly overpriced along with all the other services, offered. They lowball in terms of commission rates but everything else is completely overpriced imo.
%% Dont see anything wrong with unasked for pm,imo......... Me , i live to far away from Bulgaria\LOL\10X bulgaria
re: commissions It is the norm to highlight their sweet spot. Another broker used 5000 as an example. Both are atypical of the avg. trade size. Unsolicited PM is no big deal to me. It is like any advertising technique. Some people like it. Other people dislike it intensely as being overly intrusive.
For me there is a difference between what is prudent and honest comparisons and trying to paint a service golden that is not. I don't mind PMs from regular members either but not advertisement and unsolicited pitches. And the same goes with commission. IB charges a minimum fee with a hurdle rate of 100 shares if I remember correctly (I rarely trade equities). So comparing that with a per share price makes zero sense. I forgot what the current average stock price on the NYSE is but I bet it's not higher than a hundred, meaning, any meaningful position entails more than a hundred shares.