One of the advantages to trading futures prop is the fact that you can hold overnight positions and trade more longer term while at the same time trading intra-day. Most traders will use up all their margin in a retail account if they hold a position for days or weeks. This prevents them from daytrading. But in a prop account, you can hold positions, and at the same time trade stocks or futures intra-day without worrying about margin issues. This is huge for most traders.
Maverick, Who are the Futures props? I can't seem to find any. Anyone that does futures and equities? Thx.
Swift dose futures tradeing as well as equities from newyork LSE and soon from TSX. Althought you cannot hold overnight
I wonder whether, in the U.S., there are regulatory/reporting considerations that make it difficult for prop firms to engage in futures trading.
Doubtful. It's mostly a matter of paying for the data feeds and then getting much less of a "cut" from the commissions. Bottomline: It's not that profitable for them. Also, surprisingly, no one brought-up the favorable tax treatment of futures profits vs. equity/equity option profits.
There are countless number of prop futures firms. In fact, there are more prop futures firms then any other type. You can usually get a list by going to CME's website and look at all the clearing members. They are all listed. Not to mention they are talked about all over ET.