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I was customer of Man Financial, before they went bancrupt. Fortunately I left them early enough, but since then I am conscious of this risk.
I have distributed my money to three brokers independent of each other. Currently I trade with DeCarley, RJO, and brokerjet. (At brokerjet I hold my stocks account, but I could trade futures and options in case of emergency.) Thus, in case of problems of one of the brokers I only lose a part of my money. Additionally, in case one of the accounts is blocked for some days (no trade possible), I could enter off-setting trades in one of the other accounts.
I think trading with one of the more established public firms such as TD Ameritrade (Thinkorswim) can substantially reduce the risk of your broker going bust. Public companies are subject to more scrutiny and oversight so they can't just disappear with your money overnight. I've been selling tons of ES puts with Thinkorswim of TD Ameritrade and happy with their service so far.
In general, I agree with your statement about larger, public firms, but let's not forget that Man Financial was public and went bust over a weekend, and the largest banks and brokerages on Wall Street accepted govt bailouts (TARP, immediate conversion to a commercial bank, etc) to avoid going bust in short order. I realize that a few in the bailout group were 'forced' to join the group for public perception reasons, but the fact remains that in a crisis, the financial strength of any bank/brokerage/trader can disappear in days.
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What are their options margins for ES ? (better than IB at least ?)
I'm looking for a good options broker, IB is fine for Futures but not options.
Thinkorswim uses SPAN margin for futures options. IB requires 2 or 3 times of SPAN so it's definitely not a good choice for futures options sellers in terms of margin requirements at least.