Compare The Top 50 Futures Brokers
I have been searching all over for this, I was about to give up when I finally ran across it.
This is a chart of the top 50 clearing futures brokers and it lists how much money they have in client accounts and how much liquid capital they have – the chart is on page 2:
futuresmag.com/reprints/218866.pdf
Notice number 9 – Refco has 3,643 million in customer’s money and they only have $290 million in liquid capital.
They are the firm that ran into trouble this year and had to be bought out by another firm.
All the members agree to pay for anyone who goes under, so it is really more of a factor of inconvenience than anything else.
I think the worst case scenario would be your clearing broker goes under and shuts his doors, your trading account is frozen until someone comes in and takes over. It could take a little while for this to happen.
Days… Weeks… I don’t know. But there would be the possibility that your positions would be sitting there and you would have no way to close them out.
So while they are trying to figure out who is going to pay up for the problem you watch your winning trade turn into a loser before anyone gets your account up and working again.
That’s what you’re trying to avoid.
This is a chart of the top 50 clearing futures brokers and it lists how much money they have in client accounts and how much liquid capital they have – the chart is on page 2:
futuresmag.com/reprints/218866.pdf
Notice number 9 – Refco has 3,643 million in customer’s money and they only have $290 million in liquid capital.
They are the firm that ran into trouble this year and had to be bought out by another firm.
All the members agree to pay for anyone who goes under, so it is really more of a factor of inconvenience than anything else.
I think the worst case scenario would be your clearing broker goes under and shuts his doors, your trading account is frozen until someone comes in and takes over. It could take a little while for this to happen.
Days… Weeks… I don’t know. But there would be the possibility that your positions would be sitting there and you would have no way to close them out.
So while they are trying to figure out who is going to pay up for the problem you watch your winning trade turn into a loser before anyone gets your account up and working again.
That’s what you’re trying to avoid.
