That is why I keep on speaking out against any sort of FCMs, they are utterly outdated. By the way this has nothing to do with retail. Outside the US there are tons of full fledged professional brokerages that do not operate as you described FCMs. I traded listed futures and options and futures options, and spreads in professional prop capacity with Goldman, Samsung Securities, Newedge, Nomura, and many others and we set up credit lines with them and were given initial and variation margin levels each day and that was it. Not a single broker negotatiated or set number of contract limits other than those stipulated by the exchanges.
I find the reasons for withholding of requirements an excuse. If you truly cared about true figures you would not let prospective clients choose their numbers on their own but required bank statements and tax filings.i am not singling out your firm, this is a plague with he entire American FCM bunch. Other non FCM brokers even in the US transparently post their requirements.
My gripe here is with all FCM shops and their outdated and often outright arrogant and secretive attitude, I am not attempting to single you guys out. The only way to wash out those outdated approaches to handling brokerage is by voting with our pockets and hence my being active in this space to promote and recommend brokers who are transparent in their commission charges and trading limits. It's a major inconvenience and trouble to have to phone up each FCM and get the used car salesman pitch and other BS when those brokers can anyway tell you whatever figures they want only to change them once clients onboard. There are still way too many middlemen in the American brokerage industry, each biting another couple basis points out of the pie.
