Best Futures Brokers

Who's your favorite broker and why?

I'm partial to TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers, but I'd be interested to hear who everyone else is using.

For the purposes of the poll, I voted for TD Ameritrade because they're who I would use if I could only pick one broker. I actually had an account with Thinkorswim back when they were a broker, and became a TD customer after Thinkorswim was acquired. I've stuck with them over the years for the following reasons:

1. They let you trade whatever you want. (futures, equities, options, etc.)
2. They offer Thinkorswim, which is a fantastic platform.
3. All the FREE data I could ever ask for. Thinkorswim is now integrated with FRED which has been awesome.
4. Commissions aren't cheap, but they're reasonable.
5. Great customer service.

That said, I'm a big fan of Interactive Brokers and also have an account with them. The reasons I like them are:

1. Like TD, they let you trade whatever you want.
2. They have very cheap commissions.
3. They actually pay reasonable interest on idle cash.

There are some big downsides with IB though. Their platform needs a complete overhaul and they charge for data (which I've never bought).

What I do is use TD and IB in combination with each other. I use TD exclusively for data and analysis, and I use IB to place trades. This way you play to the strengths of both brokers. Note its also good to have multiple accounts in case one broker goes offline and you need to put on a position or hedge real quick.

Bully for you. Unfortunately TD's new customer on-boarding hoops seem much more ridiculous than what Thinkorswim would have had. I set up an account with TD a year or two ago and still haven't been approved for futures trading. I do have leverage and can trade just about anything else though. I've called them a number of times and I either get an ignorant answer or an "I can't divulge our secret sauce, try again" answer.

As a result I've been using IB for futures will probably give E-trade a shot but haven't jumped into it yet.

Sorry to hear that bulltrap, that would be so irritating. I have 2 futures accounts with TD and fortunately never had a problem with them.

FWIW, as far as I know brokers only go off what you tell them when it comes to different approval levels. There's no audit process so you could check.
Etrade isn't bad. I briefly had an account with them, but there's one thing I don't like about them... If you want to trade equities and futures you have to have two separate accounts. TradeStation is the same way unfortunately. Its nice to have it all in the same account in case you're hedging and want to avoid running into margin problems. That becomes especially important if you're approved for 'Portfolio Margin.'

Thanks for the input, I'll give etrade a try eventually, I don't mind segregated accounts all that much.

Yeah this was sort of the problem though. After I asked them why I wasn't approved they told me to submit as much career info, net worth and proof of experience trading similar investments as I could in order to get approved. Basically you have to earn their service rather than not give them an excuse to not provide it. I'm not sure what they are looking for but I suppose I have not given it to them yet. I'm sure it has something to do with sophisticated investor status but I have good experience so idk... they don't want my business I'll go somewhere else

There's no shortage of good choices.

If I were to start a new account I'd probably look into TastyWorks too. They're new and I'm wary of new brokers, but they're by Tom Sosnoff who created Thinkorswim. Obviously they're going to cater to options traders, but I think the futures commissions are decent and I'm guessing they won't be too strict on approvals.