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One other thing is the cost of switching. If you move money by wire you may have wire fees both in and out of your accounts. If you do checks you have the time that checks are in transit and waiting to clear that you are not making any money while that is happening.
Take that price to OX and negotiate...I got them to lower their price but still haven't switched because my broker treats me really well. OX will move on the turnaround price if you tell them you're getting a better deal elsewhere. Also having a big account helps
It is at .12 right now and I think .19 when I sold to open. But It's only 5 contracts, I only trade the size I'm comfortable with. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night with 1,000 ES option contracts! Also having witness multiple option traders (with large positions on the fringes) get wiped out during 08-09.
Is anyone having problems with OptionsXpress margin requirements for short futures options accounts? OptionsXpress is displaying erroneous margin requirements for my account for two weeks. They think this is related to a "server issue" but have not been able to resolve. It may also be related to a problem they are having with calculating margin requirements for one specific futures options contract (coffee puts).
The problem manifests itself in showing incorrect margin requirements for the account. These incorrect numbers display on the accounts balances page, but the problem is intermittent. In other words, sometimes it displays the correct numbers and sometimes it displays the incorrect numbers. The incorrect numbers are showing a large multiple (many times) what the correct margin requirements should be.
I have been on the phone with them every day for two weeks about this. They have not been able to resolve the problem. I asked them if other accounts are affected and they tell me they don't know about other accounts being affected. Curious if anyone else is having a related issue?
Apologies if this is posted to the wrong thread, but it appears to be a specific problem related to accounts holding short futures options positions so that is why I posted it here.
Yes, I've had similar issues in the past with OX. The issues were random and occurred 2-3x. Each time it was resolved after notifying them with a telephone call. This hasn't occurred since last year. At the time I was trading CL and EC (calls and puts) and ES puts.
Thank you for the response. Two questions for you about this.
1. Did they every communicate to you what was causing the problem and what they did to fix it?
2. For the ES puts, was it monthlies or quarterlies. The reason I ask, is because certain information such as underlyings seems to be appearing incorrectly for ES puts in my account, but only for the monthlies.
Curious to also hear from anyone else who has had this problem with OptionsXpress.
1. No, they never mentioned what exactly caused the issue. After telling them the problem, they placed me on hold, came back to the telephone and told me to logout/login and everything was resolved.
2. I was trading ES weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies and the EOM expiration at the time. I do not remember when the margin issues occurred, so unfortunately I can't tell you which contracts I was holding at the time.
I have not gotten useful margin requirement results out of their Trade Calculator for a while now. I don't even bother checking their stuff. I just use @Dudetooth PC-SPAN program to figure out margin requirements.
Kevingdog thank you for the response about trade calculator. To clarify my post, the problem I am experiencing is not with trade calculator. The incorrect margin requirements are being displayed on the account balances page for open positions. Sometimes they display the correct figures, sometimes the incorrect figures. OptionsXpress has communicated to me that this is a problem on their end but they have not been able to resolve it.
The incorrect margin requirements they are displaying are off by a factor of 10, i.e., the incorrect margin is ten times the correct margin. When this occurs, the margin requirements are far in excess of the net liquid value of the account, and my account is temporarily frozen and I am not able to enter a trade either to initiate a position or even to close a position, and I am also not able to initiate a funds withdrawal.
They have had various theories about what is happening but their theories appear to be incorrect so far. If anyone else has anything to share about their experiences with this type of problem with OptionsXpress I would appreciate hearing about it, thank you.
