There are five things to consider when selecting a futures broker: platform and connectivity, broker integrity, margin cost, commissions, and service.
The platform is the sine qua non of trading, so choose that first. Then only select from the firms that will accommodate your choice. Service is a judgement call; it's critical when you need it and irrelevant when you don't. And it's hard to quantify. For example, you'll find posts that vehemently berate Interactive Brokers' service, and you'll find those who are good with it.
Regarding broker integrity, margin costs, and commissions:
Interactive Brokers
Probably the biggest fit of what has been termed 'temporary insanity' by any still-viable broker is when on Friday, March 6, 2015, Interactive Brokers deliberately disabled all futures trading in all IRA accounts for all clients with no warning or notice whatsoever. Traders only found out about it by repeatedly trying to trade and not having any idea why those trades wouldn't go through, then later by perusing the complaints on sites like this. If you called IB they would only say that that's what management decided, and that it was permanent. With no other rationale. It was literally like trying to reason with the schoolyard bully; it was just that stupid. And they repeatedly and consistently refused to turn trading back on, thus giving you zero notice to move your account. They finally succumbed to the ongoing ridicule and, seven days later, they gained some semblance of sanity and sent out their first statement about this, completely reversing their decision. But that was too late and too costly for some traders.
You can read more about it here:
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...trading-futures-in-ira-accounts-at-ib.290101/
There are two other issues with Interactive Brokers:
1. They charge higher than exchange margins and the description on their site is misleading. Even though their site claims "The tables below depict the exchange margin requirements," if you actually look at the numbers they post you'll see the margin charges are, in fact, not exchange margins but they are higher than the exchange margins. And if you want to trade futures in an IRA account, well, as we used to say long ago when I was in New Jersey, "forgetaboutit." Their IRA margin requirements are higher than those for their cash accounts and they are prohibitive for anyone who is proficient at trading futures.
2. Their commissions are higher than those of most discount firms.
AMP Futures
AMP Futures' biggest faux pas was when they DOUBLED their ES overnight margin requirements on June 24, 2016, (Brexit). Suddenly paying double margin for no good reason is potentially very costly. And if you have systems that are efficient at trading ES, this gross error in judgement by AMP may well have had a significant impact on your plans and profits. I did a good amount of research on this and AMP was the only broker I could find that raised ES margin costs at all then, let alone doubling them. Also, the ES Globex exchange, which routinely raises its margin requirements when increased volatility is anticipated, did not raise them at all at that time--only AMP alone did this. So just keep all this in mind when you see AMP's tout that they charge exchange margins. The fact is that AMP, on June 24, had ES overnight margin requirements that were higher than any other broker that I could find.
Advantage Futures
Their commissions are somewhat higher than those charged by the discount firms and a big problem was reported here:
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/backup-brokers-to-ib.297218/
where Advantage was, apparently unjustifiably, keeping a client's funds.
Wedbush
This firm recently told a trader he had only 48 hours to find another broker even though there was no emergency situation. See it here:
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/been-asked-to-move-to-another-fcm.301026/
It's obviously best to stay away from anything like this.
TD Ameritrade
I have no issue at all with TDA. This is a straightforward firm. And it is one of the most professional brokers I have ever worked with. Their commissions and margins are somewhat higher than others', but you take them or you leave them. And, similar to Interactive Brokers, they too penalize you with even higher margins if you are trading in an IRA account. You'll find no misleading advertising and no surprises here.
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Now let me take a moment to opine that it is indeed unfortunate that this site chose to abandon its Broker Rating section. For anyone who has their consistently successful trading systems and platform down, it was the number one source of content, as the only variable left is the broker. And if you trade size, small differences among brokerages are meaningful. And my understanding is that the Broker Rating section was abandoned simply because it was too much trouble. Sad; very sad. Sure, the newbies and the pikers want emojis, but the serious players want content. And the lack of content is what is griped about most seriously when this otherwise-fine site is evaluated by its participants.
