Futures Account with insurance?

TGregg · Jan 20, 2015

All this Swiss flavored excitement got me to wondering, is there any broker that offers 3rd party (governmental or otherwise) insurance/guarantees for futures accounts? AIR, if TradeStation or IB went under, futures accounts would be at risk.

marketsurfer · Jan 20, 2015

Never ever ever maintain more funds in a futures account than is absolutely needed to trade yoyr stategy. Minimum day trade margin preferred. Sweep out excess consistently into insured bank account. surf

TGregg · Jan 20, 2015

marketsurfer said:
Never ever ever maintain more funds in a futures account than is absolutely needed to trade yoyr stategy. Minimum day trade margin preferred. Sweep out excess consistently into insured bank account. surf

Thanks Surf. That could make for an interesting comparison, commissions and margins `tweenst all the brokers. Not to have maximum leverage on a tiny stake but to minimize risk in this financial world that looks increasingly black swanish.

wwatson1 · Jan 20, 2015

Don't over leverage and you will be fine, if you account was destroyed by one big currency move then you had it coming anyway because you where over sized on 1 position

TGregg · Jan 20, 2015

wwatson1 said:
Don't over leverage and you will be fine, if you account was destroyed by one big currency move then you had it coming anyway because you where over sized on 1 position

I believe you have misunderstood. I do not trade currencies. I do not overleverage. I am not worried about trading failures on my part, but about my brokers going under because of overleveraged cowboys and taking my futures accounts with them.

wwatson1 · Jan 20, 2015

TGregg said:
I believe you have misunderstood. I do not trade currencies. I do not overleverage. I am not worried about trading failures on my part, but about my brokers going under because of overleveraged cowboys and taking my futures accounts with them.

Ha ha I see what you mean, sorry

TGregg · Jan 20, 2015

wwatson1 said:
Ha ha I see what you mean, sorry

No worries. This Swiss thing has a lot of people on edge. Man, I can't believe they just went ahead and did that without any warning at all. Have they never watched Greenie, Benjie or . . . uhm. . .Yellie? Yeller? Sheesh. Who picked this broad as Chair?

TGregg · Jan 20, 2015

Wow, someplace called Apex Futures with $500 ES day margins. Just reading that made me think about a Tums. JFC, people are crazy.

mmt · Jan 20, 2015

there are lots of firms offering low day trading margins. Some offer less than $500 for the ES

TGregg · Jan 20, 2015

mmt said:
there are lots of firms offering low day trading margins. Some offer less than $500 for the ES

Man that is scary. But not if you are apropos. If you have the money at the ready to trade on thin margins, then all is well. But "I pity the fool" who thinks "Swell, I can scale up to 100 contracts on my 50k early buyout! I did three trades last week and one made money, this is easy stuff!"