FutureWise Trading Group

Originally posted by larrybf
BASE-HITR........ did todd discuss the safety of keeping your account with his clearing firm. I never heard of them.I believe there is no insurance coverage for futures account ( no such thing as SIPC). The website seems very evasive regarding this.If I save $1000 in commisions but see a $25K account disappear I would be VERY UNHAPPY. Please let me know if he addresses this issue. Thanks
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You can e-mail or call him directly (248) 596-9600 and get a reply quicker than I can get it and post it here (I think they have an 800 # for customers). I did search http://www.nfa.futures.org/basic/search.asp for Snively and his firm and found no complaints listed. Of course thats not conclusive but its a start.

I had not seen that site (www.impulsiveprofits.com ) prior to Haas's post and admit that having a broker associated with a hype site does not give me a warm and fuzzy. I'm curious as to what connection there is between the FutureWise and that site.

I do not and have not had an account with them. An earlier poster in this thread "mbradley" stated that he does. He is better suited to answer some of your questions than I. I'm just a guy who has e-mailed them and read some messages in their yahoo group.

With their low daytrading margin requirement, you don't have to put a lot into your account. If you are currently profitable trading futures, you could theoretically fund it with < $10k (I don't know their minimum account size) and trade multiple e-mini index contracts while regularly withdrawing profits.

Even if they later increased their fees by $2.50/rt (50%) they would be hard to beat for a full service broker with (according to Snively) redundent connections to the exchanges and brokers available to place orders quickly by phone with no extra charge (neither of which IB offers). In addition, you're not going to find a broker with the ultralow intraday margin requirements offering all that.

It is not my intent to bash IB but with IB's Trader Workstation constantly changing, and their attitude that "you signed the form that says you know our software isn't necessarily reliable" I'm not sure it should be classified as anything other than beta software.
 
I cant attest to where the money is kept clearing wise. I dont have that much with them, so it is not something Im worried too much about. So far, they have been nothing but good to me.

Mike
 
I e-mailed him again and after he replied I got his permission to post it here. He took the time to answer all of my questions without prior knowledge that I would later seek to post his answers.

--- Question: ---
Here http://www.impulsiveprofits.com/futurewise/faq.htm you/your firm states "First of all, when you read the details of the offer, the all inclusive rate is only good until the end of September." Is/was this September 2001 or 2002?

--- T. Snively: ---
We have extended the all inclusive rate through the end of the year. There are no plans to increase the commission, but we can't eat the exchange fees forever. We do plan on passing them through, at cost, the first of the year.

--- Question: ---
Stock accounts are protected by the SIPC. What kind of assurance(s) are there to protect account holders if you should decide that your firms assets have reached a level that makes you comfortable wiring out the balance to the Cayman Islands and living your life as a fugitive?

--- T. Snively: ---
CCI is a regsistered FCM. Clearing firms contribute to a fund that exists to reimburse clients who lost money due to a registered FCMs malfeasance. They have never had to pay out as far as I know. However, there is really nothing stopping me, or anyone else, from stealing the money and leaving town.

--- Question: ---
Here http://www.futurewisetrading.com/faq.htm you state "Introducing Broker. We introduce your account to the best Futures Clearing Merchant (FCM) for your situation. It is the FCM that actually holds the money. All FCMs that we could use are all registered with the CFTC and are members of the NFA. They
are all required to meet strict financial conditions and they are required to keep your funds in segregation from their business funds." Don't you use CCI exclusively (which you also own) ?

--- T. Snively: ---
No, we don't use CCI exclusively. Some traders insist on certain platforms, and some contract specific traders (like grain traders) want a specific FCM. We are an independent IB, so we have relationships with lots of FCMs.

--- Question: ---
Also what is your association with www.impulsiveprofits.com ? Having a broker associated with a site that makes trading commodities/futures seem like easy money makes me uncomfortable. I'm not alone in that.

--- T. Snively: ---
Stephen is a good guy. I don't always agree with his advertising, and I've told him so. On my web site, the very first thing you see is a rather strong warning.
 
I left FWTG (as a customer) in mid January.

In another forum I was told that FWTG was ceasing operations, here is the text of the message.

"I just received an email from FutureWise Trading Group that the NFA has informed them that they are not in compliance with certain rules and regulations. Therefore, they are immediately ceasing operations and will liquidate all accounts."

Can anyone confirm this or shed any insite on what happened. Very interesting.
 
I just Got this Email! Their web site is down!

Please take notice that the NFA has informed FutureWise Trading Group, Inc. that they are not in compliance with certain rules and regulations of the NFA.

Therefore, FutureWise Trading Group, Inc. is immediately ceasing operations.

We have been told that we will be contacted by the CFTC in the next couple of days to arrange for the liquidation of accounts. We are going to await further direction from the CFTC as to how to liquidate your account.

If you have any open positions, they have been offset as of the close of February 5, 2002. Any trades that were placed today, February 6, 2002 are being voided and will not be applied to your account. Therefore, consider yourself flat all positions.

If you are receiving this and do not have a funded account with us, then there is nothing further for you to do. Please do NOT send any funds to open an account.

If you do have a funded account, then you will be contacted by the CFTC, NFA or us in the future with additional information.

We apologize for the disruption and any anxiety these actions may cause. We will work closely with the CFTC to ensure a speedy resolution to these issues.

Sincerely,

FutureWise Trading Group, Inc.:mad:
 
Wow! I only traded with them for a couple of weeks. The software wasn't stable enough and when their server was down for me it was down for their order desk also so I left.
 
Just from what I've read (the email) it has to do with compliance issue's. In this case I would hazard a guess that you will get all of your money back (but don't hold me to that). Call the CFTC or NFA and see if you can get anything out of them (or try to call FWTG).
 
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