Trading Arcade In Dubai

[alokp1]

Hi guys,
Thinking of setting up a trading arcade for self backed traders in Dubai with the ability to trade all the popular products on Eurex, LIFFE, CME and CBOT. Just want to know the level of interest and if anyone is currently thinking about moving to Dubai to trade.
Cheers
Al

 

[Directional]

interesting idea from a tax perspective as Dubai has 0% income tax, and lots of sun to boot.

Connectivity might be an issue though as last time i was out there all connectivity had to route through the state run monopoly ISP Etisalat which was laggy as hell. Not sure if this holds true for the free zone.

Would you be looking to host your own exchange gateways?

 

[alokp1]

I believe the infrastructure is a lot better in the free zone and shouldn't be prone to any delays as I'd have a direct connection to the servers.

 

[fiftyfifty]

Would think that Dubai will certainly become a destination that will become popular with self financed traders and prop houses as it probably offers more in terms of lifestyle than Gibraltar with 0% tax.

When you say direct connection to the servers do you mean that Eurex will have a hub out there? Excuse my ignorance but don't know a whole lot about the infrastructure that needs to be in place to stop any price lags. Know Dublin and London have hubs that link houses straight to the exchange by dedicated lines so if I'm using the wrong jargon then this is what I mean by hub.

 

[zeeuk]

Has to have connectivity as good as London for me to consider. Are there any houses out there at the mo?

 

[alokp1]

Not that I know off, but i know that Manfinancial have an office out there.

 

[Calypso]

I'm based in Dubai (recently moved). There are no prop firms here though a few have tried to setup but haven't been successful because of the cost of the infrastructure and demand. To have good connectivity eurex/liffe hubs would have to be hosted locally otherwise fills will be slow and the spreaders in London would have the edge. If one is willing to invest the big bucks into the infrastructure then theres a possible mkt however there are many more obstacles to be faced. One of the prop. firms did carry out tests a year ago with an international private circuit running into their London servers and found the connectivity unacceptable for the spreaders. Also, there were faced with various other issues (visas for traders, opening bank accounts etc ..) .

The internet has improved dramatically over the years. If it suits a trader's style then its fine and the lags are no different to a UK ISP. For outright traders who are not scalping for a tick its fine. Those who run a 2-3tick stop-loss it is more than acceptable.

Time zone is perfect, tax setup is great.

 

[alokp1]

Great post, thank you for that. I spoke to a couple of prop firms who seem to think that I wouldn't have a problem having a connection out there that would be connected to there hubs in London. But i assumed there would be timelags to. As for the other factors such as costs, visas and accounts etc, i have a lot of local business connections who would be able to sort those problems out.

I'm based in Dubai (recently moved). There are no prop firms here though a few have tried to setup but haven't been successful because of the cost of the infrastructure and demand. To have good connectivity eurex/liffe hubs would have to be hosted locally otherwise fills will be slow and the spreaders in London would have the edge. If one is willing to invest the big bucks into the infrastructure then theres a possible mkt however there are many more obstacles to be faced. One of the prop. firms did carry out tests a year ago with an international private circuit running into their London servers and found the connectivity unacceptable for the spreaders. Also, there were faced with various other issues (visas for traders, opening bank accounts etc ..) .

The internet has improved dramatically over the years. If it suits a trader's style then its fine and the lags are no different to a UK ISP. For outright traders who are not scalping for a tick its fine. Those who run a 2-3tick stop-loss it is more than acceptable.

Time zone is perfect, tax setup is great.

 

[Alternative1]

Dubai Set-up costs.

Can you help me to get an idea of start-up costs for those moving to Dubai for first time?
Where should I live?
What are the costs of accomodation?
How expesnive is it to live in Dubai compared to UK?
Do you have a social life?
Is it easy to ghet around in taxis or do you need your own car? Is it a good place for the girlfriends/wives to live? etc etc.
All tips gratefuly received.

 

[alokp1]

Hi there,
I'd suggest you rent an apartment in Dubai, somewhere in the newly built Dubai Marina would be great with a studio typically costing around £150 per week to rent, 1 bedroom around the £200 mark I believe.
Its relatively cheaper to live in Dubai than in the UK with food, accomodation, petrol, and other goods all cheaper due to less tax and no VAT.

There is plenty to do including the beach, lots of world class hotels and shopping malls, as well as other usual leisure activities like cinemas, exhibitions, gyms etc.

Its very easy and cheap to get around in taxis, but cars can also be purchased cheaper than London, and petrol costs about 20p a litre. You can rent cars from around £10 per day.

Its a great place to live for girlfriends/ wives etc due to the lovely all year round summer climate, lots of shopping facilities and a safe environment, with low crime rates.


Bit vague, but hope that helps!

Alok

Can you help me to get an idea of start-up costs for those moving to Dubai for first time?
Where should I live?
What are the costs of accomodation?
How expesnive is it to live in Dubai compared to UK?
Do you have a social life?
Is it easy to ghet around in taxis or do you need your own car? Is it a good place for the girlfriends/wives to live? etc etc.
All tips gratefuly received.

 

[Directional]

I really liked it out in dubai when I visited last year.

its almost a resort city - there is an abundance of things to do, activities etc.

shopping in the malls and centres is good, and pretty favourably priced. Supermarkets are about 70% of the price of say tesco for most goods. You can also live very well on the cheap if you find the back street restaurants and pavement cafe's where the local arabs go - we had some amazingly diverse meals of very high standard food, very cheap from some of the "lower class" food stops.

Just make sure you find a good currency shop for your dirhams. I got bummed getting currency at the uk airport... mistake!! I unwittingly gave up nearly £100 in the spread... foolish boy

 

[bundrider]

If eurex opened a hub out there I know loads of prop traders who'd go simply for the tax reasons, as others have said the time zone is great for european markets. I've been in contact with eurex every six months for the past few years asking if they're considering it, I'm sure the state would pay for the hub to be installed just to get the business but eurex are pretty backward and only just opened in Singapore. Currently orders from dubai would go to the zurich hub i guess which is just too slow for scalping.

I recently read that you no longer need 50% ownership by a UAE citizen and that some companies can be wholly owned by foreign nationals now but unsure in which sector that applies to. The prop houses are keen as there is no corporation tax and the traders are keen too as no income tax. The government doesn't have a tax department.

If you earnt £100k in London, instead of paying 40k tax you could move out there and have 911 (which are 20k cheaper there) instead of a tax bill and get sun, sea and sand to boot. It's a no brainer for traders but eurex HATE spending money. If they did open dubai would be overrun with traders

 

[EurexTechy]

Latency would be interesting, currently see around 250ms from Singapore to LIFFE's ping host over a dedicated installation. Never really touched much in Dubai.

 

[DonMuang]

dubai ....don't forget to rent most places you need a residence visa and accommodation rental contracts are for yearly periods .... reasonable 2 bed apartment in Dubai won't be less than £12k / annum.
if you're connecting via Etisalat you might have connection problems to uk bank accounts etc as proxy server firewall can cause connection problems
Dubai certainly ain't cheap for things like supermarket food and school fee's,...
don't forget betting is illegal so you'd better take some advice as regards SB accounts

 

[bundrider]

dubai ....
don't forget betting is illegal so you'd better take some advice as regards SB accounts

If you were spread betting you wouldn't be looking to move there for tax reasons as it's tax free income anyway

 

[DonMuang]

Isn't SB part of a balanced investment 'portfolio' ..... don't think many people rely on SB as the sole investment source ....
Laws can be implemented in some unusual ways in the UAE - some things which you'd think would be heavily penalised aren't - whilst other small transgressions can be heavily penalized - including on the gambling side.
As with most places then going there for a holiday is a bit different from living there. :!:

 

[markb25]

This may be of interest to some one, I am in Bahrain and this was recently sent to me:



Dear Mr. Mark,

I have received your details from our associated firm in London.

We understand that you have expressed interest in trading the futures market. Kindly allow us this opportunity to introduce ourselves.

Trust Securities DMCC is a clearing broker member of the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX), authorized and regulated by Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (ESCA). The exchange trades precious metals and currency derivative futures, and will start trading in deliverable steel and furnace oil futures at the end of this quarter.

Trust Securities is the only member of the exchange to be positioned on the same floor as the exchange. This provides great market information and a substantial advantage over our competitors. We are pleased to inform you that Trust Securities DMCC is contributing more than 15 to 20% of the volumes traded on the exchange, provides full service broker with extensive technical and fundamental research and dealing desk support, it provides services in 8 different languages including Arabic, English, Persian, Spanish, French, German, Urdu and Hindi.

Enclosed is a Soft Copy of our Brochure for your kind information. Kindly, refer to our website www.trustsecuritiesdmcc.com regarding information on the Company profile.

For any further information please do not hesitate to contact us.

Looking forward to providing you with our superior services.

Best regards,

Areej Ahmad,



Mark

 

[bundrider]

I'm hearing that the go ahead for the Eurex Hub in Dubai has been given with completion penciled around May '07 , will let you know when I hear more...

 

[bundrider]

In an email from Eurex


"I'm pleased to inform you that we have a specific incentive program
for new members. The initiative exempts all new participants admitted in
2007 from both the minimum transaction fee and transaction fees of up to
€3,000 per month for the first year. New trading participants will also be
offered training programs on a free-of-charge basis, up to a certain
amount.

As mentioned on the phone, we are in the process of establishing a new
telecommunication hub (Access Point) in Dubai which will hopefully be
operational sometime in spring this year.

I will be in Dubai during the first week of February (Feb 05-08) and it
would be great if we could arrange a meeting to go over all details
regarding a potential membership. I have a flexible schedule, just let me
know what would be convenient for you.

Feel free to pass on this information and my contact details to anybody who
might be interested as well."

Eurex Frankfurt AG
Derivatives Market Business Dev. - Sales
Neue Börsenstraße 1
60487 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

 

[alokp1]

Thanks for that Bundrider, are you going to meet him? Because I am in Dubai during those exact dates. Please could you send me the contacts email so I can try and arrange something.