Prospreads & InteractiveB - relative costs of FTSE scalping?

Hi - I'm trying to compare Prospreads with Interactive Brokers for scalping FTSE futures. Have I got the figures right here? Assume we're staking multiples of £10 per point. Call "£10 per point" a "contract". I think we get:

Prospreads: 1 point going in, 1 coming out, spread of 0.5 up to 200 contracts per month and thereafter 0.25. So £25 per round turn, falling to £22.50. (This includes the spread).

Interactive Brokers: £1.70 per contract, i.e. £3.40 per round turn, plus the market spread, usually 0.5 (is this right?). So £8.40 per round turn.

So IB is about 3 times cheaper than PS. Am I missing something??

Yeeah, IB is cheaper, but Prospreads is taxfree!!!! So you actually compared an IB-apple with some pears (which actually are brokers - not marketmakers- in a tax friendly spreadbetting disguise).

If you are taxed in the UK - wonderful, if you are subject to foreign tax authorities - save the money.

Regards

Hittfeld

John

I think you that wrong i trade with them on the FTSE and the costs are
.5 in and .5 out (spread cost) £10 and market spread of .5 (£5) so total = £15 going down to £10 after 200 bets (.25 i/o .5)

Still more expensive but as hitfield said tax free for Uk

kevin sims said:

John

I think you that wrong i trade with them on the FTSE and the costs are
.5 in and .5 out (spread cost) £10 and market spread of .5 (£5) so total = £15 going down to £10 after 200 bets (.25 i/o .5)

Still more expensive but as hitfield said tax free for Uk

Click to expand...

Thanks for this correction. So £15, going down to £10, UK tax free, as against £8.40 UK taxable. But harder to make anything to get taxed on when the charges are higher

PS seem pretty competitive at volumes of several hundred lots per month. Also people tell me their client service is much better than IB's. I'll have to think about it.

I'm a bit wary of the business connection with an SB firm (which is no better than the others) and also that it's not straightforward totally-down-the-line DMA.

Do you know whether with either PS or IB it's possible to run the necessary client software (Citrix for PS) off a flash drive? I'd like to trade using my own laptop (with mobile broadband connection) and a university PC (and its internet connection) as backup, in case the first connection goes down. I doubt I'd be able to install the Citrix client on the university PC's hard drive.

Is there any one else offering a 0.5 spread on FTSE !

johnnn - Prospreads end up costing you 1pt per round trip per lot which for the FTSE futures equates to £10. But it is a spreadbet and free from capital gains tax.

IB charge £3.40 per round trip plus clearing fees which are £0.56 per lot. All profits are subject to capital gains.

Alternatively you could use Open Ecry who charge me $2 per round trip plus £0.56 clearing fees. It works out around £1.80 per lot per round trip for everything. Their platform is quite nice and there are no data feed charges.

The spread between the bid and the ask is what you are going to pay every time. No matter whose platform you use. At least with all 3 of them you can buy at the Bid and sell at the Ask some of the time. You don't get that with the likes of a normal spreadbetting firm. But with a normal sb firm you can do less than £10 per pt which is your minimum with the 3 mentioned.

If you are a scalper then stick with Open ECry. If you are a swing trader then Prospreads should be fine.