Based on the replies here and other opinions I could find on ET, I contacted 19 futures brokers and asked them a few questions about the services they offer. I put each broker in 1 of 3 groups: excellent candidates, good candidates, and bad candidates. I only had 2 futures brokers in the excellent candidates group: Velocity Futures and Go Futures. If I were a high volume futures day trader who is always in front of the computer during market hours, I would have chosen Velocity Futures. Opinions of Velocity Futures seem to be good and they quoted me a rate of $3.98 per round turn including all fees for trading ES futures. That rate was using the Ninja Trader platform. If you wanted to use Strategy Runner the rate was $4.23 or with X Trader the rate was $4.73. However, since I'm NOT a high volume futures day trader and Velocity didn't offer order entry through a web browser, I chose Go Futures. Go Futures offers both front end software to enter orders or you can enter orders using a web browser through their site. If you open an account with $5K or more, they'll give you their lower commission rates. I opened my account with $20K and have made a few round trips in the ES and NQ. They are charging me $4.30 per round turn including all exchange fees. That's a HUGE savings over the approximately $33 per round turn all in I used to pay. So far, customer service seems to be good. They gave me the 800 number to their night desk. In short, I think I chose a good broker for my needs. That was the easy part, now comes the tough part . . . trading. Once again, thanks for everyone's posts.
Recommended Broker for eMini S&P 500 Futures
- Thread starter VoodooMMI
- Start date
What is a DBA ?
Hey Miro?
What made you decide to go with AMP?
and I heard they also pay well to those who spam ET hyping them up 
all 4 of your posts have to do with amp, people....you do the math.
all 4 of your posts have to do with amp, people....you do the math.
QUOTE
"FWIW; [http://www.5perside.com/about.asp]
I post this for the published rates commission shoppers... $1.75 all-in per side for ES, NQ, ER. That's a published RT all-in rate of $3.50!"
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Does anyone here have an account with 5perside? Can you confirm that the $3.50 RT rate on ES, NQ and ER includes exchange fees?
"FWIW; [http://www.5perside.com/about.asp]
I post this for the published rates commission shoppers... $1.75 all-in per side for ES, NQ, ER. That's a published RT all-in rate of $3.50!"
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Does anyone here have an account with 5perside? Can you confirm that the $3.50 RT rate on ES, NQ and ER includes exchange fees?
IB is, without a doubt, the most discussed broker on ET and the $4.70 round turn all-in rate for ES futures that they quoted me was certainly competitive. But I had a few reservations about using them as my Futures Broker. First, I think it's difficult for a broker to service both equity traders and futures traders. I prefer to use one broker for equities and a separate broker for futures. This difficultly in trying to be all things to all traders may manifest itself in the opinions of IB's customer service. Rightly or wrongly, I've seen several posts that say customer service at IB is below average. There also seemed to be a pattern of extra fees which may or may not apply in my case. For example, for snapshot real time quotes IB said I would have to pay $10 per month. There is a $10 monthly maintenance fee if your balance drops below $2,000. There is also a $10 monthly inactivity fee. As I only asked them a dozen or so questions, I felt like this pattern of extra fees might continue for potential fee questions that I did not ask them. When you wrote "IB is the Best" I interpreted that to mean "IB is the best Broker For What I Want to Trade". As they didn't seem to match my wants and needs very well, I decided to go elsewhere.