Can you explain what this pricing involves - $0.25 per side. Does this mean you only get charged when you place a trade? i.e. the software and data feed is effectively free?
Yes, you can pay a monthly charge for the trading platform, or, you can simply pay a per contract charge of .25 for every "side" that you trade.
This is in addition to the normal Globex fee of $1.00 per side, transaction fees which run about .39 cents per side, and NFA fees of .02 cents per side + REFCO's commission.
So basically you are looking at $1.66 in fees + whatever commission that you can negotiate from REFCO.
I am willing to pay a bit more with this platform from REFCO because it is so incredibly fast, and also allows me to trade pretty much everything under the Sun, not too mention the fact that REFCO has been around forever!
If you are using RefcoXpress, you can place orders online for pit traded contracts as well as electronic contracts. Although Refco Pro has a lot more bells and whistles, I believe you can only use it to trade electronic contracts.