I have no basis for comparison but I have no complains. I usually trade equities using market order because once I decided I don't like to fool around. Quite often their fills were between bid/ask instead of buy at ask and sell at bid. On the other hand with options I always used limit orders.
I am sorry you had bad experience with them. I don't trade futures so don't know if their demand is reasonable or not. I only trade equities and options on equities. I have been using Schwab to trade for over 20 years, opened my account with $1,000 and have no problem, so far. On the other hand I had quite a bid of problems with the other brokerage I used. I am still keeping my funds in both because I don't want all my eggs in one basket. Also, as I mentioned in a different post, I don't know if the 25 cents a contract is their usual commission or if I got a special rate. They reduced my commissions about a year ago.
A lot of commodities brokers back then had high minimums to open an account, but $200k was excessive. I eventually ended up at a broker who only required a $5k opening balance and $45 per round trade. But the fact that they wanted to charge me so much above and beyond what a normal broker would charge and also not give as good service just really pissed me off so I wont use them forever now.
Of course it is. In any case, I am OK with 25 cents. I used to pay way more a few years back with a full service broker and even then it was fine compared to the profits. As a non professional amateur retail, I tended to focus more on profits than commissions perhaps it should be the other way around?
Yeah, but it's funny, I don't even remember the name of that broker now. I only remember they were based out of Chicago. I certainly don't miss the old days of having to get real time quotes from my landline or paying $350 per month to have a book of charts mailed to me every week.
Aside from First Trade, all brokers do not offer $0 commission to customers living outside the USA. I live in Asia and use TDameritrade (Think or swim) and still have to pay brokerage. However, customers living in the USA who use TDameritrade pay $0 commission.
"Yeah, but it's funny, I don't even remember the name of that broker now. I only remember they were based out of Chicago. I certainly don't miss the old days of having to get real time quotes from my landline or paying $350 per month to have a book of charts mailed to me every week." Lind Waldock and very little has changed in the world since 1994