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I would guess that I have had about 50 Clients who went live with accounts of $25K and leased CTS T4 on a transactional basis. They can carrying a portfolio of a dozen different one-lot futures spreads overnight for about $5K in margin. They even use the CTS charting package in combination...

How is it that the auditing accountants at the CME, ICE, NYSE-Euronext, Eurex, etc. etc. [ ie, all of the futures exchanges who audit their FCMs and General Clearing Members routinely as a condition for Membership ]; the auditing accountants at the CFTC [ the ultimate authority who is charged...

Nope, swing and a miss. How about the freaking regulators not taking account balances at face value from the entities supposedly being regulated ? How is it that a government bureaucracy with a $200M annual budget cannot verify with the bank supposedly holding the segregated funds what the FCM...

This is yet another example of government oversight being such an illusion. The CFTC actually got a budget increase for FY 2011 - up to $203M. The undeniable fact of the matter is that if the government auditors had simply double-checked the accounting figures directly with the FCM's...

I think that you should validate your perspective a bit further before declaring mean reversion the best strategy. Trading for mean reversion in commodities spreads the past several years has not been productive. And that is being very diplomatic about it. If you are fading one or two sigma...

At least at Las Vegas and Atlantic City and the various riverboat casinos in the United States - your typical BlackJack Dealer probably makes a jiggle above minimum wage. As has been so eloquently stated by other contributors who have apparently been inside of a casino and played the table...

The physical fungibility aspect of many futures contracts is usually overwhelmed these days by speculative flows. For example - you can calculate the basis for the Nymex CL contract easily enough, but the math ignores the fact that getting rack space in Cushing, OK is pretty much an...

I have clients who use both X Trader and CTS T4 and CQG IC. I would say that most use CTS which is very reasonably priced. There are some large Chicago FCMs who will lease it to you on a transactional basis with a monthly cap - which is a smoking hot deal for a spread trader.

I have had some clients whose brokers margined their spread leg components individually as flat price risk on an intraday basis. You are correct that in terms of your daily statement, the exchange does the margin calc and the broker, being an exchange member, has no choice but to comply...

1. Re: IB, I have had new clients in the past who were unable to access exchange supported spreads - like Crude Oil or Eurodollar intramarket spreads, and intermarkets like the CBOT ICS spreads and the Nymex Crack Spreads. As I mentioned in a previous post, if IB now offers them to clients...

If your core trading strategy has a positive expectancy, then stops work just fine. We set both a profit target and a stop-loss level at the time of trade entry.

What if the trader is no better at "massive scalping" than he is at cannonballing a losing position marking wildly against him ? What turns exponential is the capital requirements - and the trader's stomach lining erosion rates.

Which one are you ? Big or institutional ?

IB apparently does not support exchange spreads amongst their clients. To date, every client that comes to me clearing IB switches clearing firms. That is what I personally know to be true, and if IB wants to correct me by all means please speak up.

The exchange supported spread markets are almost universally more populated throughout the order book than the outright futures ( the individual leg components ). The Eurodollars are an extreme example of this, where in the near term forward curve there can be over 10K on the best bid and ditto...

Stock Index Futures Spread Trading: http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/files/SP500_DJIA_Spreads_Final.pdf InterMarket Stock Index Spreads: http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/files/Stock_Index_Spreading_0410.pdf Some sort of CME presentation apparently done for...

In the futures world, they can see all working orders ( the Risk Manager for sure ). In fact, some silly futures brokers and certain front-end platforms will treat working orders as open positions and debit your account real time for risk purposes. Yes, it is the nature of the beast. I...

It would appear that since you are quoted as being "contractor" in the agreement you refer to, that indeed you are not formally an "employee". Are you being paid on a 1099 ? If so, you should formally add a section to the agreement that you incorporate "Prior Art" into your work...

Agree completely. And then having the sense to make the necessary adjustments in order to maintain a "positive expectancy" under dynamic and evolving market conditions. In terms of "discipline"; well, do not underestimate the ability for certain human beings to butcher a perfectly...

There is going to be increased regulatory scrutiny for firms that combine "training" with some sort of "trading account" - no matter how they package it or market it or describe it. The NFA is actually at the forefront of the investigations, and is referring those involving futures markets to...