I can not find any statistics, at least not through the casual google search. I am trying to see where do I fit in the food chain, having assumption (hopefully not wrong) that bigger account gives you at least some kind of leverage when somebody has to answer the phone or accomodate some kind of request. Currently I run fully automated set of strategies and it is mostly about the technical issues (API and such) and getting some help, however I would imagine that it might reflect in case of trade dispute as well. Once had a discussion with account manager from Gain (I believe it was the institutional accounts) and it was mentioned that 50K+ account is considered lower/medium to medium size. I guess many of the fx brokers do not have the obligation to disclose such info, but I can not find anything on the futures brokers as well (don't care about the equities, not involved with that). Assuming the above statement was correct, one scenario could be (completely speculative on my part): - 50% of accounts in range 0 - 25K - 25% of accounts in range 25k - 75K - 25% of accounts > 75K I would appreciate if anybody has some reasonably accurate numbers and does not mind posting it here. Thanks everybody!
what an idiot... Bill Gates started with practically nothing... the smaller you start, the more you'll make by mid-career...
Bill Gates had every early advantage of the times. Well connected, weathy parents, a privleged education, and was granted access to state of the art computing power at a very young age. Very little to do with luck about luck.
Average account size varies among the brokerage firms. From 3rd quarter 10-Q reports: TradeStation - Average Account Assets Equities $70,700 Futures $21,800 Interactive Brokers - Average Account Assets Universal Account $125,000
Well, should have known that those public guys are reporting something, although bit surprised that they report any business metrics at all. Found the TradeStation 10-Q and they are reporting 47,434 total brokerage accounts without breakdown, but they say that vast majority is equities and futures. What I would really like to know if those averages (71K and 22k) are anywhere close to normal distribution, but that might be too much to ask. Anyways... Thanks for posting.
True, but you are flat-out wrong with your conclusion. I remember it well. Bill Gates had a one-word answer to the question: "How great was 'luck' a factor in your success?" "Huge."
^^ And you must be naive to take at face value what comes out of his mouth. Of course, once people make it huge, most tend to downplay other significant factors - and call it "luck" & "hard work".
Yeah, gates and 100k other people. You have serious wealth wounds that make you think like this. This may be the wrong business for yoU. be careful