hello~everyone.i'm considering of to open a account to trade real futures in the world. but so many brokers and platfroms makes me be dazzled. so i need past masters help. i used to trade as follows: 1,i usually use chart ,tech analyse to trade.so i need a platfrom has very nice chart,longchart. 2,i'm in beijing ,i don't know the net speed is ok or not?i think if a broker has nice speed or has asia severs,it's will be ok. 3,the money safe,like many people said that,it's very hard to understand for a common people. i pay attention to some broker: IB--(but i think it's platfrom TWS is complex.) globalfutures--it's platform are so much,i don't know which shall i choice. thank you every body.may be my question is so simple. please give me hand.~
What kind of volume are you planning on? To me it sounds like what you're doing doesn't require one of the specialized brokers such as IB or Lightspeed (which deal with high volume stuff), and it sounds like you might benefit more from one of the stronger, sturdier brokers such as etrade or TD Ameritrade. I know that TDAmeritrade has some really nice charting programs and their customer service is top notch.
IB is not good as a broker when it comes to futures. First IB is far too conservative on margin policy. IB has an auto-liquidation system. Still most of the futures have 100% margin, some of which are pretty liquid. 100% margin is really unnecessary in nearly all cases even less for a broker which doesn't margin call and has an auto-liquidation system. Second IB commission on futures is pretty expensive especially if you trade on large volume. It's one of the highest among all discount brokers. Recently IB changed its futures commission scheme which inadvertently increase a bit commission for non-US traders. See IB - non-US traders penalized under new futures plan for details. Third IB software is not good for futures traders. There are a few bugs which have been reported for ages but are still present. IB TWS doesn't allow "tick" as an input value. You can't tell TWS to "put a stop under 10 ticks after execution". Different exchanges have different sizes of tick. It could be a big issue if you trade multiple futures. BTW IB servers encountered some glitches/errors some days ago. You should be aware of it although it doesn't happen too often. See IB - epic failure today. See also IB GBP futures charts messed up today.
thank you all kind man. my velume is not very large.i often trade 10-20 per month. i usually do little position. the IB as you say,i have the same feeling. i had checked TD, could it trade futures? i don't know there have a company who don't need 100% margin?what is this style company called in us?(OTC?)if it means that: i use %10-%20 money and could make a future trade? thank you for Corbel, i will check etrade and the others next. thank you for Tradism for your valuable advice~
o~~~ i have see that, some company makes fixed margins about trade futures,that's great. let me see it clearly~