Direct account with Clearing firm

1. NO

2. Depends on the clearing Firm, I use SLK and it can vary based on what ur trading, etc. However, Margin requirments are a bit tricky with SLK, but they are with industry standard. (talk to the clearing firm of ur choice and they will elaberate on this)

3. 1:10 is a possiblity depending on a few factors (which the clearing firm will explain) 1:50 not in options or stock, I believe bonds have a nice ratio and not sure about futures. This also depends on if ur overnighting as well, however, if you have a close relationship with ur clearing firm, the overnight leverage can be messaged.


4. not sure about futures as i dont trade them


The rest of ur question are best answered by the clearing firm you choose. From my experience, relationship with the clearing firm is the key factor. As you prove ur self as a succesful trader, the more the clearing firm will work with you , with in the paramaters of the SEC, NASD, and Clearing firm rules.

If you team up with someone that has a established a solid, on going relationship with a clearing firm, this tends to give you a little more leeway. I just started my LLC, but teamed up with a friend that had a long lasting and standing relationship with SLK. This proved to help with our leverage and commish prices. Nasd and SEC fees are standard.

The key thing with clearing firm is the leverage they give both intraday and overnight and the Margin call proticals. Sometimes they will give you an extended period for margin calls, allowing you to message ur postions so they fall back under the % that the calculate for a call.

But each clearing firm is diffrent and its all based on relationship building outside the standard fees.
 
Joe,

Do you run a hedge fund?

nitro
Quote from Joetrader:

I have 2 prime brokerage accounts with SLK. One for my S-Corp and one for my Pension Plan. You do not need to be a broker or even pay professional fee's to clear directly. You are just a regular guy with an account. This is how all the hedge funds do it. Now if you want more than standard Reg T leverage you either have to be a broker, or there are a few firms (SLK is one of them) that have access to offshore leveraged products. The offshore stuff is basically a sweep of your account each night into a Goldman account that is in the UK where they don't have such restrictive leverage rules. So if you become a broker and establish a joint back office (JBO) with your clearing firm I think you get 10 to 1 day and 4 to 1 overnight and with the offshore products you can get even more. Hedge funds all use the offshore products since they are not brokers. I know you can get up to 6 to 1 overnight and I think the inter-day is quite negotiable depending on your trading strategy and the risk involved (I know they go at least 20 to 1). You will have to talk with them about fee's.

At SLK, the limits are (last time I checked, always increasing though);

100K to open a stock only trading account
250K to open a stock, options, and futures trading account
1.5M to open a Prime brokerage
5M to open an offshore leveraged account
50M to open an offshore leveraged pension account.

Now I have some more useful information for you. First of all, there are no ticket charges for any trade you make with the SLK/Goldman family (domestically anyhow). You pay a ticket charge when you trade away which means if you place a trade with Merrill, then I pay a ticket charge of XXX to SLK for the clearing and I pay the trading commish to Merrill and your happy ass is smoking crack if you think that ticket charge is going to be anywhere near $1.50. Billing for shares is on a per broker basis.

The reason you open a prime brokerage account is that it gives you flexibility to trade with any broker anywhere in the world and keep your account maintained in one place. I can go long Jap stock and short Jap bonds with the Jap broker of my choice and clear the trades through SLK. Don't forget to figure in the expense of T-1 line, bloomberg, etc. The shit adds up fast!
 
Thanks everybody for your replies, very interesting stuff, i gonna check it out, and if need be come back to you guys for some more info.

Thanks
 
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