I understood the 6k a year cost but he implied it was a fixed cost and it was not. The platform is a viable alternative to TT and CQG and that is the point I made. I tried to explain to him that there is no "platform cost". In fact, I was making your point that it's simply a scheme used by FCMs to price discriminate in order to get more commissions out of low volume traders. Then YOU start lecturing all of us on the evils of FCMs. It was not necessary. All of us on this thread have decades trading experience. BONE, that was his badge as a floor trader and member of the CBOT, has been doing this for decades. I'm also a former member of the CBOT as well as a prop trader. Also i960 is no rookie either. Even the OP claimed to be a "pro". So who are you lecturing here? We all understand this business. We're all here by choice. If you have some advice for the OP, give it to him. Don't try to "teach" the rest of us how the industry works, we understand it just fine. Have a good one mate!
Platforms with ZERO charge (or very low charge) that allow you to trade exchange spreads
- Thread starter propwarrior
- Start date
I understood the 6k a year cost but he implied it was a fixed cost and it was not. The platform is a viable alternative to TT and CQG and that is the point I made. I tried to explain to him that there is no "platform cost". In fact, I was making your point that it's simply a scheme used by FCMs to price discriminate in order to get more commissions out of low volume traders. Then YOU start lecturing all of us on the evils of FCMs. It was not necessary. All of us on this thread have decades trading experience. BONE, that was his badge as a floor trader and member of the CBOT, has been doing this for decades. I'm also a former member of the CBOT as well as a prop trader. Also i960 is no rookie either. Even the OP claimed to be a "pro". So who are you lecturing here? We all understand this business. We're all here by choice. If you have some advice for the OP, give it to him. Don't try to "teach" the rest of us how the industry works, we understand it just fine. Have a good one mate!
Lol, was it not you lecturing others? "with my 8 years allow me to lecture you on...".
And I gave my advice which is to take advantage of one of the APIs and have someome create a platform that fits his needs. It would potentially be more performant and cost efficient than any of the TT and other products out there.
enough said.
And I gave my advice which is to take advantage of one of the APIs and have someome create a platform that fits his needs. It would potentially be more performant and cost efficient than any of the TT and other products out there.
enough said.
Oh...just build a platform. LOL. Great advice. While he is at it, he can start his own brokerage, create his own exchange and invent his own trading products. I mean it's all so simple right? Build your own! Thanks mate. I think that might be a "little" bit more expensive then just shelling out the platform fees while he builds his volume up until his FCM starts comping him for it. I'm sure he will get working on that straight away.
It is an order submission and aggregation of risk as function of fills analytics component. We are not talking a full scale OMS as that is not necessary as front end. This is exactly my complaint. What OP is asking for does not justify charging 500 dollars a month for. We are. Talking about simple order entry and submission and the aggregation of fills and displaying of exposure. It could not be simpler, especially for plain vanilla futures and futures spreads.
It comes down to need. If there are no needs for customizations I 100% agree with OP in that free platforms are doing the job perfectly fine, especially TWS. What is not apparent here in this whole discussion, however, is the value added those other platforms supposedly provide in exchange for charging 6k a year, which is close to one half of a full Bloomberg terminal. I know where Bloomberg adds value. But i don't see it with platforms that let me submit my order and chargee 500 a month for the privilege to click the buy or sell button.
I rest my case
PS I traded complex rates exotics for close to a decade and made markets in rates derivatives so lets agree that futures spreads are as simple as it gets when it comes to order, execution, risk, and exposure.
It comes down to need. If there are no needs for customizations I 100% agree with OP in that free platforms are doing the job perfectly fine, especially TWS. What is not apparent here in this whole discussion, however, is the value added those other platforms supposedly provide in exchange for charging 6k a year, which is close to one half of a full Bloomberg terminal. I know where Bloomberg adds value. But i don't see it with platforms that let me submit my order and chargee 500 a month for the privilege to click the buy or sell button.
I rest my case
PS I traded complex rates exotics for close to a decade and made markets in rates derivatives so lets agree that futures spreads are as simple as it gets when it comes to order, execution, risk, and exposure.
Oh...just build a platform. LOL. Great advice. While he is at it, he can start his own brokerage, create his own exchange and invent his own trading products. I mean it's all so simple right? Build your own! Thanks mate. I think that might be a "little" bit more expensive then just shelling out the platform fees while he builds his volume up until his FCM starts comping him for it. I'm sure he will get working on that straight away.
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I don't think that TWS is a viable option for the OP if he wants to cut costs. Commissions are at 85 cents per lot up to 1000 lots, so the platform is free but the commissions are high. You probably can get the commissions as low as 40 cents with Advantage or Dorman for 1000 lots, so that would be 65 cents per lot to trade with CTS T4 (for exchange traded spreads).
I feel that the best option so far is to go with DDT and Firetip at 50 cents per lot + free platform (or possibly check with Optimus with ADMIS and the Oak platform).
Well guess what: IB margins spreads mostly similar to what the exchange specifies for the most part. In fact, the only area they mostly lack in is excessive conservativeness in far-out contracts on the curve and VX futures - other than that they're similar to the others.
And yeah, as an example, I think most would think it's a pretty big problem if they got margined 20k$ on a crude butterfly (due to 4 legs) vs 150-400$ which the exchange specifies.
Also, we're all on the same team here - people aren't looking how to screw FCMs over or how to get screwed over, they're simply looking to not get raped on unnecessary platform costs whilst not having to reinvent the wheel.
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I dont think this is correct ryker. but stand to be corrected I dont use a platform which has a per side cost to it so I am not 100% certain. With all the brokers and clearers I have worked with you are billed for clearing/nfa/commissions as per individual legs even if you execute on exchange spreads. So if my commission is 50c a side and I do 2 round trips on calendars to enter a fly I am billed $4 commission not $2. So you are saying this principe doesnt carry through on platforms?
I agree and in any good business costs must be minimised. I laugh at people who say you must buy the rolls royce platform for ints functionality to retail traders who have $5k, $10k, $25k. The whole trading industry is built to suck out dumb money. When you add up platform cost, data, clearing, nfa, commission over the course of a year you could be down $5k to $10k right off the bat. Talk about stacking odds against you.
I think he is doing it to add to the mystique that he is the all consuming authority on spreads and must be paid for instruction on such. The facts are if you are trading simple exchange traded spreads the margins are there on the exchange websites in black and white. All it takes is a simple email/call to the broker to confirm if they use them.
Of course we are not talking about more complicated synthetic spreads like Aussie 10s vs. 10 year treasury, gold v. platinum, bundboblschatz, in which case you need a more suitable clearer and they dont offer free platforms.
I attach advantages commission scale below. If you do 1001+ contracts per month commission is 49c per side. DDT will do 45c commission per side for 1000+ contracts per month and as you say they have firetip basic for free or firetip pro for $49pm, its a great deal.
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