# A 2014 comparison of futures brokers for Aussie and US bonds



## investedz (25 July 2014)

Hi all,

Ive been looking around for a futures broker that deals with Australian and US bond futures. Currently I am using AMP Futures as I've found them to be the cheapest. So far the service and data have been acceptable. The downside is that when placing an order there is almost half a second of lag even though my account has been set up with the Sydney CQG server.

So far ive been eyeing the following companies:
Macquarie
Bellpotter
Halifax
Abn amro
Interactive Brokers

Can anyone share their experience with any of them? Brokerage, margin, speed? Or are they pretty much similar and it's just a case of negotiating the best price?


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## investedz (28 July 2014)

investedz said:


> Hi all,
> 
> So far ive been eyeing the following companies:
> Macquarie
> ...




So no one here trades bonds or has used any of these companies? If not any from the list can anyone suggest any other broker?


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## ThingyMajiggy (28 July 2014)

investedz said:


> So no one here trades bonds or has used any of these companies? If not any from the list can anyone suggest any other broker?




Really shouldn't be half a second if you're actually connected to the Aus server. That's appalling, it's less than that to the US and Europe! 

You could try ABN Amro, not with them personally, but I think some prop firms in Sydney are and they have instant response time to our markets(They are also next door to the exchange). I think some are with CQG too though, and certainly wouldn't be half a second for our local stuff.


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## Pager (3 August 2014)

I use IB now, the rates are very low, was using Macquarie and paying a flat US$10 per side plus GST, but when the broker I was using left they put the rates up to US$17-50 plus GST per side, was happy to pay more for Macquarie but hiking the rate 75% was too much, didn’t look elsewhere as I already had an account with IB.

Only downside with IB is you have to be on hand to place, amend and cancel orders plus any f@ck ups are your responsibility, trust me you will get no joy from IB. 

There rates are here.

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=commission&p=futures

As to other brokers I think those you listed are about it in Australia at present and a few of those are third party and use IB anyway, unfortunately these days the number of futures brokers has diminished, think there are not as many private clients as there used to be, Forex and CFD,s seem to have taken a lot of business, personally I think futures are a far more even playing field but contract size is maybe the biggest issue for new traders were as the likes of forex you choose your own size.

As to any lag in data with IB, seems fine to me but I really wouldn’t know anyway but my orders almost always get filled at the price I have set or is showing in the TWS be they stop, limit or at Market, same with margin, I have never had an issue but then again I don’t load up or add to positions.


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## rcctradings (3 August 2014)

investedz said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Ive been looking around for a futures broker that deals with Australian and US bond futures. Currently I am using AMP Futures as I've found them to be the cheapest. So far the service and data have been acceptable. The downside is that when placing an order there is almost half a second of lag even though my account has been set up with the Sydney CQG server.
> 
> ...




If by HALIFAX you mean the one associated with Andrew Baxter - Elite Traders - Australian Investment Education, I would say stay away. A search through the site might give you some more info.


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## minwa (4 August 2014)

Pager said:


> Only downside with IB is you have to be on hand to place, amend and cancel orders plus any f@ck ups are your responsibility, trust me you will get no joy from IB.




Are f@ck ups with other brokers not your responsibility as well ? Also what do you mean by on hand..it is the same with any other online self assissted broker ? What other online self trading brokers do you have that allows you to not physically place/amend/cancel orders..IB has the most advanced order types and contingent conditions I have seen in any broker.

IB service sucks, have problem with their margin for Aus clients but is great for futures.


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## Pager (4 August 2014)

minwa said:


> Are f@ck ups with other brokers not your responsibility as well ? Also what do you mean by on hand..it is the same with any other online self assissted broker ? What other online self trading brokers do you have that allows you to not physically place/amend/cancel orders..IB has the most advanced order types and contingent conditions I have seen in any broker.
> 
> IB service sucks, have problem with their margin for Aus clients but is great for futures.





With the likes of Macquarie, you simply phone or email your orders through to your broker, they then take care of things, if they forget or do something you have not specified in your orders its there responsibility, but obviously things like slippage or markets going limit up/down, limit orders not being filled if it’s the high/low of the session is just part of trading and happens from time to time, but mistakes DO HAPPEN, well they happened to me anyway, maybe rare and not just from Macquarie but EVERY full service broker I have used over the years from the old Jardine Fleming, Man, LQuay, B1, Tricom, its part of trading but also maybe one reason you pay a higher brokerage rate and why everything is reccorded.

with IB you need to place ALL your orders in the TWS yourself, that is be “on hand” to do so particularly if you use the open or close to base an entry price or to close out or open a position as not all exchanges let you use an MOC or MOO order and if you place a lot of orders I doubt there is anyone who doesn’t make the odd f@ck up, most are human era so not much you can complain about but on a couple of occasions I have called IB about an order I thought was cancelled but then gets filled and although I always find the HK desk helpful and polite, getting anything from them is impossible, only recently I had an MOC order on SGX that didn’t get filled, got out when the night session started but at a slightly worse fill than the close, IB said they could see my order was active and had to speak with SGX as to why it never executed but never heard back from them.


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## minwa (4 August 2014)

Oh you meant full service brokers. It's not really fair to compare IB to full service brokers as they simply aren't one. I'd assume most futures traders do orders themselves as it's quite hard to place a lot of orders through phone. 

Yeah I guess you have an extra layer of protection against human errors as you read your trade out instead of just clicking it yourself and for that you pay much higher brokerage and slippages and slow order entering.


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## CanOz (24 June 2015)

Currently looking at MacQuarie Futures, anyone here have any experience with them? They have all the markets I'm looking for in Asia, plus the platforms.


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