bbmat, You clearly have not done your homework when researching IB. IB started life as a pure institutional broker. Next time call the trading desks before claiming you know what software and back-end they use.
then where does Thomas Peterffy come from? And why does Timber Hill make most money in making markets instead of commission income? With IB I meant the whole group of Timber Hill maybe I communicated unclearly, and I appologize for that. Nonetheless, when talking about Asset Management Pools, Trust Funds, Pension Funds, Insurance Funds, Hedge Funds: Clearly Timber Hill is not the number one choice for their brokerage needs nor a first choice as prime brokerage for hedge funds. I talked about the big guys in the game and their needs and Timber Hill as a broker is barely ever mentioned. That is all I wanted to state, nothing else. Right, I believe you that your broker dealings date back (was it 25 years or about?) but this is not your main source of income now. (When talking about the whole of Timber Hill worldwide). Otherwise indications given by S&P, audit firms, and regulatory bodies seem to be very misleading (as a partnership you have limited reporting requirements anyway which makes it twice as hard to come by any numbers). BTW, Steve, I don't have to claim anything nor need to ask trading desks cause I worked byself AT the trading desks of 2 big institutionals in three of their global locations). I think you are unfair, Steve: I never talked about IB's beginnings. I talked about their source of income right now!!!
bbmat, Regarding your lack of research into IB, I was referring to the following comment: "I merily mentioned Deutsche B. as an example. Fill in Credit Suisse, Morgan S., UBS, Goldman, Merrill, and all the others. Fill in all the institutional asset managers, bigger than a one-person shop in the forest of northern Montana. Noone has every used TWS nor will use it."
I have used among others , x_trader, J trader TWS. I am currently using X_trader never try fastfill. I can say TWS is good for non scalping trading , better if you add ninja trader or button for exemple. J trader is a good platform better than Tws but my preference goes to X_trader. I am an investment manager of a hedge fund so i need a 100% reliable soft. Does the offer of 3.32 R/T whatever the number of contracts you trade is for the first month or is it for every time?( before the next lowering of course) just to know. If it is permanent it seems to be a very good deal .
There are more firms offering this, so I guess Advanced Futures can do this as well. They are a good firm (personal opinion) and always willing to create good deals for the right persons / volume. I was offered this rate ($3.32 to be specific) for eMini's, using the J-Trader platform, no additional charges, no minimum volume but with a minimum account size 25K. I didn't accept this offer because : - I don't like J-Trader - I don't want to have 25K in a futures acct (not SIPC) I will not tell you who offered this, I think it's better to try and negotiate a better deal with your current broker than switching to another. If you cannot work something out, I'm sure you're not with the right firm, take a look at the sponsors of this website. Hope this helps.
You had to tell them that What's the point of no minimum volume and additional charge, if you $25k in your acct. Because they know you will be doing volume once have $25k in your account.
Can someone confirm the difference of FFasttrade VS X-Trader excutionwise? Is FFastTrade difinitly faster than TWS and J-Trader? I need to hear from some one who had real trade exprinace with all these platform. I don't have future account yet, (trade stocks with www.xoomtrade.com only) but intend to open future account soon.