Which broker offers best value

kevin546 · Sep 25, 2004

Can anyone assist re trading LIFFE FTSE Futures contracts. Which company offers the best value for trading in 10 - 50 contracts.

I am aware of Interactive Brokers who are cheap with no frills approach, they charge £3.40 round trip per contract but would other brokers offer better commissions on high volume trading.

Kevin

a_gnome · Sep 28, 2004

How many round turns are you doing per month? If it is a reasonable amount then there are brokers who can offer better volume discounts than IB.

josbarr · Sep 28, 2004

brokers

(Refco Express)
E-mini (S&P, NQ, R2000, Crude, Nat Gas)
$3.70
CBOT Financials
$2.95
E-mini Dow
$3.58
Currencies
$5.25
Eurex Dax*
$3.75
Eurex Bund Bobble/Schatz*
$3.00
Eurex E-Stoxx*
$3.20
* Rates subject to exchange rate fluctuation

These are round turn as well.

kevin546 · Sep 28, 2004

On average 3 - 6 round trips a day on FTSE only

josbarr · Sep 29, 2004

Are you familiar with PATS J-trader or any other platforms?

a_gnome · Sep 30, 2004

kevin546 said:
On average 3 - 6 round trips a day on FTSE only

So 3-6 r/t p/d doing 10-50 lot clips = ~ 2,800 r/t per month?

You can definitely get professional rates for those sort of volumes (eg £1 r/t + exchange fees) but there is usually a software platform charge as well.

josbarr · Sep 30, 2004

No Platform fee through Refco Express.

fillyerboots · Oct 11, 2004

kevin546 said:
Can anyone assist re trading LIFFE FTSE Futures contracts. Which company offers the best value for trading in 10 - 50 contracts.

I am aware of Interactive Brokers who are cheap with no frills approach, they charge £3.40 round trip per contract but would other brokers offer better commissions on high volume trading.

Kevin

If you go for unbundled pricing with IB you should get £1.20 per side for ftse

kevin546 · Oct 11, 2004

Thank you for your responses

regards

Kevin

hktrader · Dec 17, 2004

Kevin,
If you take IB's unbundled pricing, and assuming 2,800 contracts per month. You'd end up paying about 76pence per side + exchange fees.
Steve, IB

BBB · Dec 17, 2004

Refco are a good futures broker. They also offer a platform called Refco Pro (Easyscreen) for an additional 50c r/t there abouts. Its on a par with X trader people tell me.

GNI are also quite good but to be fair I have never used them and I dont think they will be as competitive as Refco.

kevin546 · Dec 18, 2004

hktrader

Thank you for the stats what is actually meant by unbundled.

Kevin

Money_magnet1 · Dec 18, 2004

Kevin, not absolutely sure, but believe the bundled subscription includes regulatory and exchange fees. For unbundled you may have to pay these separately and/or obtain relevant exchange membership. Open to be corrected if I've misunderstood this.

mikeyk · Dec 18, 2004

Kevin

take a look at velocity futures, not sure what the commisions are for the FTSE but for the "bund" its was VERY good. However as someone has previously mentioned you will have to pay an extra £300 (approx) per month for the x trader software. To be fair though its one of th best software packages going and your getting it at a 50% discount.

hktrader · Dec 20, 2004

kevin,
IB offers two rates. The bundled rate is one fixed fully inclusive price. The unbundled rate splits the price into its seperate components - execution fee, clearing fee, regulatory fee, exchange fee, carrying fee, etc.
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/php/generalAccount/commission.php

It depends on the products you are trading, however, generally, the unbundled fee works out cheaper if you are daytrading - i.e. not holding positions overnight. The bundled fee generally works out cheaper if you just trade occassionally or if you hold positions for a length of time. You can easily switch between rates. If you check the above link, then you can see the rates and comparison.

kevin546 · Dec 21, 2004

Once again thanks to all posters for your help in this matter

Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year

Kevin

josbarr · Dec 21, 2004

Happy Holidays!

frugi · Jul 22, 2005

Unbundled/bundled comparison (YM)

Just some dull calculations which I thought I'd share for some reason. Been trading YM through IB using bundled flat fee of $2.06 per contract and was wondering whether it would be worth changing to unbundled as my daily volume has increased.

Bundled: $2.06 per contract flat rate

Unbundled fixed costs per contract:

$0.80 CBOT reg fee
$0.02 exchange fee
$0.40 clearing
No carry cost unless held overnight.

= $1.22 per contract

Unbundled execution fees (based on monthly total):

0-300 contracts: $0.90...........................$2.12 total = $0.06 more than bundled
301-1000 contracts: $0.70....................$1.92 total = $0.14 less than bundled
1001-10000 contracts: $0.45...............$1.67 total = $0.39 less than bundled

So first 300 unbundled cost $18 more. The next 129 "recover" $18.06.

Thus trading >429 contracts per month with no overnights I'm better off unbundled.
This is just under 22 contracts per day or 11 single contract round trips. Does that sound about right?

Anonymous · Jul 22, 2005

A mini-sized Dow is $5 per point while a DJIA Futures is $10 per point.

If trading >429 mini-sized ($5) then trading >214.5 DJIA ($10) could reduce commission by half?

Sorry, I don't trade YM or use IB, just thinking, maybe that sounds correct?

Which broker offers best value

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