Honest bunch, and especially like the other commentator said, no accounting gimmicks. Hey, incidently, the suggested answer as to why do these firms hold and play with the funds is because they are leveraging their required capitalization requirements on the backs of the traders deposits. That's nothing wrong provided its within the same SEC guidelines as the exchanges require. The NASD is pretty tight on these issues, and they are pretty rigourous in their enforcement of these issues. Its when the other exchanges are used that you have some slippage, but not much. Ethically, full disclosure of your entire Risk is the appropriate question, and the more accurate question. If you have to refer to the Operating Agreement, then you will need to fully understand it before rushing into anything. Echo guys kept their word, and were some straight forward traders. Cheers....
Easy now...there is no "trickery" involved at all. We have discussed this at great length in the past. It's quite simple. If a Firm chooses to or needs to use your $$ (capital) to meet their "Net Capital Requirements" then they cannot give the money back for a year. This is the regulation. Since we are adequately capitalized, we don't need to hold anyone's funds, no big deal, just the way it works. (Just trying to keep the record straight)