Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
That is exactly what I was thinking! Only keep the minimum in there to trade and make frequent withdrawals to keep the balance at the bare minimum.....or at least only what you can afford to lose in the event this happens with another broker. Better to be safe than sorry.
I received no email and when I called them they said it was sent out at 3:00 yesterday. A friend of mine who also has an account with them called PFG and he said he was told to basically kiss his account good bye. I can't imagine their customer service rep would even say something like that but my friend wouldn't make up something like that.
I chatted with Gail Mercer at Traders Help Desk. She recommended AMP Futures, so I might contact them today.
Hi, good idea. I would take this answer at face value though. In any case the ultimate decision to honor a claim is nothing to do with tradestation but the insurer who will have to prioritize customer accounts in the event of a shortfall.
It is semi-clear on the website that the intent of the excess coverage only applies to equities accounts:
"London provides coverage for loss of securities and/or cash in excess of primary SIPC protection, up to $300 million in the aggregate". SIPC does not apply in any manner to FCMs, RFEDs or FDMs or to futures or forex accounts.
Both IB and TD Ameritrade provide exactly the same additional coverage. How they treat the sweep is the key.
IB allows you to elect whether to sweep excess funds into the IB securities account (SIPC covered) or the commodities account (I'm assuming no coverage but will find out for sure). By default it is swept to the securities account. Tradestation may have the same policy so it is worth finding out.
In any case even if it is swept to the securities account, if you only trade futures and no equities the equities customers would likely be first in line as that is the primary intent of the insurance. Next would be equities/futures and third the futures guys. The equities customers would likely suck up the entire $300 million in insurance though.
Good job CFTC sue company that has no money because your regulators failed to see a $195 million short fall in accounts. Maybe CFTC needs to be sued.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
So let's forget about it, its water under the bridge, this is my third brokers' bust in 34 years of trading. I have yet to get a penny back. The next one is social Security going bust.
If you still have funds and enough motivation to continue trading you need to think forward.
So here is my suggestion: Start a poll to see which brokers your 30,000 members are using or recommending, so that we can all deposit our nest egg into another segregated future account. (I have the list of winning brokers from TASC, but we know that that is not worth a bean).
No, read the security statement carefully. It's a third party insurance with Loyds of London. And I've got it in writing... as I said, it's in the TS community. You can look it up there by searching for my user name, which is the same in the TS community as over here.
Yeah, I am glad I saw TS relatively high up in that Atlas Rating list
EDIT: Sorry, did not see the later posts by Kevin and you.
Dang... Canadians get good health care and now their futures accounts are insured... but they stopped issuing or renewing work visas for foreign strippers... so I guess it evens out....
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
The problem is we can all recommend brokers but have no reference point to know if any are truly safe. The regulators seem to never know there is a problem until it is to late. Until segregated account means segregated account that can't be tapped unless an outside third party gives permission in some fashion none of us are safe. We can look at all kinds of ratings and try and see how much capital a firm has but none of it really matters. When the falsify account balances we have no way to know anything the way the system is currently operating. Even if the account balances are not falsified it seems to be as easy for company insiders to steal $400 million as it is to steal $5. So one day there is $400 mil in account next day it is $0. Industry better wake up and police itself or there will not be an industry.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."