Setting up your first trading account(s)

[brenkon]

Evening (at least it his here in the UK)!

This is actually my first post to t2w so I'm excited to become apart of the community :clap:

A bit about myself - I'm yet to trade live but I've been paper trading and reading for at least 14 months now. Therefore I feel its about time I jumped in and began. The only questions I have left to clean up are as follows:

My trading platform is ninjatrader and I aim to trade ES and/or YM - Is their a particular good broker for that? I hear a lot of interactive broker in relation to my question, but not so sure.

Another question- being in the UK, how does all the banking work if i'm trading US markets? I assume I go to my bank here in the UK (lets say LLoyds) and ask for a US (dollar based) account - I get that. From here I assume my initial money gets deposited into this account.
So lets say I make successful trades (at least I'd hope ), and my account now stands at $1.2k. Ive decided to withdraw the $200 but want it in pounds, how does this work without being eaten alive my transfer commissions?

Now last question I promise!

For those who are familiar with ninjatrader what the f*** does this all mean? A ninjatrader customer service mentioned it to me.

" Your account & funds will be held by our FCM partner Dorman Trading. Your funds will be held at BMO Harris Bank in a customer segregated account "

Thanks for the help!

 

[tomorton]

Several thigs in your post have to suggest starting through spreadbetting - a possibility no available in several jurisdictions outside the UK. Wh not use it for now?

 

[brenkon]

Several thigs in your post have to suggest starting through spreadbetting - a possibility no available in several jurisdictions outside the UK. Wh not use it for now?

Im really sorry but I dont understand you answer

 

[counter_violent]

Im really sorry but I dont understand you answer

The question was, why do you want to go direct access broker in the US, with all the currency and tax implications, when you could simply spread bet in the UK?

 

[NVP]

I would go demo and see if you want to trade ....worry about everything else then

Good luck
N

 

[Emma1]

Trade in dollars for a start in small amount $500. if you have had several demo practice.
All the best.

 

[Bullinstu]

reply brenkon

Evening (at least it his here in the UK)!

This is actually my first post to t2w so I'm excited to become apart of the community :clap:

A bit about myself - I'm yet to trade live but I've been paper trading and reading for at least 14 months now. Therefore I feel its about time I jumped in and began. The only questions I have left to clean up are as follows:

My trading platform is ninjatrader and I aim to trade ES and/or YM - Is their a particular good broker for that? I hear a lot of interactive broker in relation to my question, but not so sure.

Another question- being in the UK, how does all the banking work if i'm trading US markets? I assume I go to my bank here in the UK (lets say LLoyds) and ask for a US (dollar based) account - I get that. From here I assume my initial money gets deposited into this account.
So lets say I make successful trades (at least I'd hope ), and my account now stands at $1.2k. Ive decided to withdraw the $200 but want it in pounds, how does this work without being eaten alive my transfer commissions?

Now last question I promise!

For those who are familiar with ninjatrader what the f*** does this all mean? A ninjatrader customer service mentioned it to me.

" Your account & funds will be held by our FCM partner Dorman Trading. Your funds will be held at BMO Harris Bank in a customer segregated account "

Thanks for the help!

To help you understand the statement at the end of your question, here is a definition of the segregated account :
A separate account used by brokers to keep their customers' money separate from the firm's money. This is done for a few reasons, including creating a clear separation between the two groups of money so neither is used for the wrong purpose, and also to insure that the money can be easily identified as belonging to customers in case anything happens to the firm (such as bankruptcy).

To come back to your broker requirements, to be honest, I am still searching for my perfect broker as well, you just have to search.
call them up if they have a number, just make sure that you have the option to lower your exposure leverage rates and it will probably a good broker then with little conflict of interest.
all the best

 

[tomorton]

Im really sorry but I dont understand you answer

Hi brenkon - That's alright, I really wanted to just point out much much more research on your part is needed before you jump in any deeper (and I might say spreadbetting is the shallow end).

But if you do the research you will get answers for all your key questions (which will be different to someone else's) and then you can really get into this.

But don't let doubts over the mechanics of market access stop you for too long - do get into trading and I hope you do well out of it.

 

[bootsyjam]

Evening (at least it his here in the UK)!

This is actually my first post to t2w so I'm excited to become apart of the community :clap:

A bit about myself - I'm yet to trade live but I've been paper trading and reading for at least 14 months now. Therefore I feel its about time I jumped in and began. The only questions I have left to clean up are as follows:

My trading platform is ninjatrader and I aim to trade ES and/or YM - Is their a particular good broker for that? I hear a lot of interactive broker in relation to my question, but not so sure.

Another question- being in the UK, how does all the banking work if i'm trading US markets? I assume I go to my bank here in the UK (lets say LLoyds) and ask for a US (dollar based) account - I get that. From here I assume my initial money gets deposited into this account.
So lets say I make successful trades (at least I'd hope ), and my account now stands at $1.2k. Ive decided to withdraw the $200 but want it in pounds, how does this work without being eaten alive my transfer commissions?

Now last question I promise!

For those who are familiar with ninjatrader what the f*** does this all mean? A ninjatrader customer service mentioned it to me.

" Your account & funds will be held by our FCM partner Dorman Trading. Your funds will be held at BMO Harris Bank in a customer segregated account "

Thanks for the help!

I'm in the UK and have an IB acct. You are correct in your wariness of costs.
You have to wire your money to them-cost:£30ish. You will be charged to have it wired back-about $30 (might be more).
Once it is in your IB acct it is in £. You will need to convert itnto $ to trade the emini sandp or YM. This is done at the spot rate on the IB platform-no charge for this. However you do incur currency risk exposure unless you change it back to GBP every day on the platform.

Commission is $4 to open and close a position (called a round trip in the futures market) so $2 per side. Not cheap. Do 10 roundtrips per day and you've eaten through 40 dollars.

I agree that people should trade futures (please see my other posts on this) but as you're so new to trading I'm not sure you're at the point where you can take advantage of all rhis. The costs seem to outweigh the benefits perhaps. Also, just want to check that you know the emini sandp is not just $1 per point exposure-it's a lot more than that!

 

[bootsyjam]

Evening (at least it his here in the UK)!

This is actually my first post to t2w so I'm excited to become apart of the community :clap:

A bit about myself - I'm yet to trade live but I've been paper trading and reading for at least 14 months now. Therefore I feel its about time I jumped in and began. The only questions I have left to clean up are as follows:

My trading platform is ninjatrader and I aim to trade ES and/or YM - Is their a particular good broker for that? I hear a lot of interactive broker in relation to my question, but not so sure.

Another question- being in the UK, how does all the banking work if i'm trading US markets? I assume I go to my bank here in the UK (lets say LLoyds) and ask for a US (dollar based) account - I get that. From here I assume my initial money gets deposited into this account.
So lets say I make successful trades (at least I'd hope ), and my account now stands at $1.2k. Ive decided to withdraw the $200 but want it in pounds, how does this work without being eaten alive my transfer commissions?

Now last question I promise!

For those who are familiar with ninjatrader what the f*** does this all mean? A ninjatrader customer service mentioned it to me.

" Your account & funds will be held by our FCM partner Dorman Trading. Your funds will be held at BMO Harris Bank in a customer segregated account "

Thanks for the help!

I should also add that I would take the ring fencing of your acct funds within a broker with a pinch of salt. Brokers have gone down before when they were supposed to segregate funds and guess what, turns out they weren't segregated after all! No one has gone to jail for it either so not exactly much incentive to obey the rules so you really don't know until the sh*t hits the fan. Having said that iB is a large established company.