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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 (14256)	1/30/1999 10:08:00 AM
From: SE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 44573

The emini is totally electronic. As I understand it PMB has people in the pit with hand held devices that receive your order. You can do this via the internet or by calling them and they relay the order to the pit via the same device. The internet can go down, we know that. That is a risk of trading over the net and one of the reasons Pat is more comfortable phoning in his orders. Not to mention the fact he frequently has computer problems. Any step from deciding when you want to place an order to actually having that order filled in the pit can fail. You need to determine your comfort level and backup plans if any step in the chain doesn't work. This past summer we had a terrible wind storm in town. It blew out the electricity. Well, my computer was down, but I still had the phone....not so...the phones were dead as well. Here I sat without access to Chicago. I had no positions on so it was not a big deal, but it does highlight the need to consider every possibility. Quite frankly, I need a cell phone here just in case that happens again. That is the first time I can recall it happening, but it can and does happen. BTW, I wonder how often they change the batteries in their devices? That would be interesting....S&P500 meltdown and the batteries fail! :) 15 minutes for wait time in the mini or the SPOO would/could wipe your account clean. Personally, I am leaning toward PMB. I agree with you on the savings, but I need to know more about the floor access. A few bad fills, heck maybe only one, and whatever perceived savings there are in commissions are gone. For stocks might I suggest looking into Steve Goldman's firm. Find his thread 'The Trading Desk.' From everything I read and from my discussions with him, he costs more than the online but you don't get hosed. Give him a call....he will spend as much time with you as necessary to answer all your questions. -Scott