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Strategies & Market Trends : Systems, Strategies and Resources for Trading Futures -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary E who wrote (14254)	1/30/1999 9:35:00 AM
From: SE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44573

Pat or Tom might be better to chime in at this point. I think the key question there is if the online system goes down and I need to place a trade, just where am I calling and what is the process to get the trade to the floor. If you have to call CA and then they have to call Chicago....that is a big disadvantage. Whomever you call, they need to be able to get that order to the floor as quickly as possible. Pat calls and they relay the order in to the pit. Temple, if I remember correctly, has a line direct to the pit. On my visit to the pit it became very clear why it is critical. When the SPOO is moving the action is fast and furious. There are people running all over the place. The order gets to the floor by being phoned into a bank of phones surrounding the pit. The person on the phone hand signals the order to the guy in the pit (who obviously must be watching the guy on the phone), the guy in the pit then turns and finds someone else in the pit that will trade with him and then turns back to the guy on the phone to relay the fill. The guy in the pit thens notes the trade on a slip of paper and a runner gets that slip and takes it whereever it needs to be taken to. I had one broker call me and they wanted my business. I asked how the order would reach the floor and they said I would call CA and they would call Chicago for me. I said no thank you. Obviously that won't work for quick scalping type trades...maybe it is fine for positional trades, but even there slippage will add up over time. Hope this helps. -Scott

To: Gary E who wrote (14254)	1/30/1999 10:34:00 AM
From: nextrade!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44573

HG, ask a lot of questions. I don't have near the experience that so many do on this thread but have been trading equities and options online for more then 5 years and futures online for more then a year. What had started out as browser based access to place futures trades, and having little or no advantage over a phone call, has now matured to where todays technology can be an edge for a smaller trader. I have scanned this thread for sometime and will say that SE is right about the LFG executions into Globex. With the mini, in which I trade much of the time, executions with confirmations are around 3-10 seconds. The large contract is not as fast, but still faster then a phone call for me. I have yet to trade the Dow contract, so have no experience there. I'm sure other IB's with competitive access software may be great trading platforms as well. I know the debate will continue about the cost of comish trading the mini vs the large contract, but in my limited experience I have found the slippage in the large contract to be a factor as well for a small contract trader. I will add, my level of comish charged through my introducing broker into LFG is less then those mentioned here. This may be due to volume as I am an active trader in the mini. Commission has always been a negotiable item in all my trading acts fwiw. One other thought of mine that applies to my trading- if the comish is the difference between success and failure, maybe I should pursue another vocation!! <g> I have held two futures acts in the event I were to ever have to offset due to the unknown, but have become very confident with my most active act and this I/B. Also, I have one broker in Chicago, and one in CA, and the locations of their offices have made no difference at all for me. I'm a long way from both! Perhaps with a large act needing access to the floor arbs, this would be an issue. That is not an issue for me. As a newer futures trader, the support and access to help and questions has value. It may be a question of stop placement of a contract never traded, or an explanation of order routing. Or even systems questions that a firm may support of have knowledge in. For me, its the continued education that will allow for successful and sustainable trading over a lifetime that is important. Tom has a great thread here and I have found it be a very valuable resource. Thank you all. Good luck! nextrade!