With the demise of portfolio margin due to increased requirements of clearing firms, I am interested in finding a Prop Firm with equivalent allowed leverage for swing trades (15 to 90 days). I almost exclusively trade SPX options. Any ideas?
if you still want leverage on 7 fig, divide your capital among around 10 firms. A bit of hard work during the execution, but depending on how you trade ( I assume not scalping on options? ), you can do it without needed additional "human execution power".
As someone who trades through both a prop firm and a portfolio margin account, mainly SPX options, here are the issues you will face. In a prop firm, your SPX options (other than weeklies) will be routed through a broker on the floor. In a customer account, the orders go directly in the book. This can make trading much more difficult in the prop firm. Our prop firm clears Goldman and the only thing that I need to be concerned about is total risk. Currently in the SPX I need enough capital to weather 15% up and 20% down. Futures are easy to hold in the prop account and are aggregated with total risk. A Think or Swim customer PM account will actually allow more risk (they look at less of a move) then my Prop Account. You will also need a 56 for the Prop account.
APEX clearing is the primary cause of the dry up of PM, with 25 and 50 % stress tests. Think or Swim only allows net 200 contracts short per $100.k in equity.
I agree. It's good to split your capital. Especially with prop firms since they are not SIPC Insured.
The problem with IB is their auto-liquidation algorithm that can be triggered by a wide quote at almost a moments notice for short SPX option positions. I don't know anything about Wedbush. Do you deal directly with them or through an introducing broker?