Review of Open ECry (futures broker)

[Guest cooter]

For me, working with OEC has been the best broker I've EVER dealt with. This includes going from Alaron, to ProActive Futures and Mirus Futures. The only one I will warn of is Alaron. I just didn't like what I saw (and paid). ProActive and Mirus are good, but as an IB, there's only so much they can do on commissions to be competitive.

 

So, how are you finding the OEC Trader and DOM compared to your other broker's software?

[brownsfan019 17]

So, how are you finding the OEC Trader and DOM compared to your other broker's software?

 

Good question cooter. For the most part, it's on par or exceeding previous softwares that I've used, including the $500/mo T4 that I was on. I have one thing that I am working on getting them to change though - I would like the DOM to re-center more quickly. In a volatile time, the price can be off-centered quite a bit and I don't care for that. I'm hoping they can consider at least giving the user the option to re-center more often. What are your thoughts on that?

[Guest cooter]

A few thoughts...

 

A button on the DOM itself to manually re-center would be nice. Something where you could easily turn on and off centering on the DOM itself, without having to mess with the DOM settings dialog.

 

The volume histogram feature on the DOM is a long overdue addition.

 

The new tiered brackets (called Strategy Order) is somewhat clunky in operation, and only has three tiers (five would have been optimal), but it does allow users to save separate bracket profiles for each DOM.

 

Market if Touched orders are finally supported in this release, and are available on the DOM.

 

One thing you might want to do is compare the speed of the OEC DOM versus another brokers, though. I was surprised to find the Transact AT just a smidgen faster than OEC, for both CME and CBOT contracts.

 

All-in-all, this upgrade (3.1.1.1) is well worth the wait.

[ant 10]

RESULT: VERY CLEAN SHEET. That's important to me and hard to do in the futures biz.

 

FCM Capital Data direct from the CFTC - http://www.cftc.gov/marketreports/financialdataforfcms/index.htm

 

Hey brownsfan,

 

Thanks for the info you've been providing on OEC. I've actually been taking a look at them as well based on your recommendation. One concern I have about them is that they barely have $1M in net capital. I would expect a company in a strong financial position to have more like many others at the link you provided. I don't know if I could get past this. Does this concern you?

[brownsfan019 17]

Hey brownsfan,

 

Thanks for the info you've been providing on OEC. I've actually been taking a look at them as well based on your recommendation. One concern I have about them is that they barely have $1M in net capital. I would expect a company in a strong financial position to have more like many others at the link you provided. I don't know if I could get past this. Does this concern you?

 

I was more concerned about the segregated accounts number since that represents client assets. $29 mill is not a ton, but enough for my consideration. As for the net capital, it is above the requirement set by the CFTC and NFA. I'll email my contact and see what the response is to that number and let you know what I find out.

 

My biggest concern would be that NFA report. If there were a ton of cases and arbitration, I would not even bother looking at the CFTC report, regardless of how much money is at the firm.

 

Like I said, I think with OEC you are getting a firm that is constantly improving their software for their traders and large enough to be a player, small enough for you and me to trade there at competitive commission rates.

[Guest cooter]

One other thing....

 

There's an old issue that has resurfaced with this recent release (3.1.1.1) concerning the display of the correct open P/L on the DOM for side-by-side electronic and pit contracts. This value also shows up incorrectly in the open P/L on the Account Summary.

 

During RTH, when both are trading, the DOM will show the open P/L on the electronic DOM based on the pit quotes - even if you didn't place a pit order. ZBU7 and USU7 are prime examples of this. It also shows in the Account Summary too.

 

Why?

 

If the pit contract has different quotes (which is often the case) then this would cause the electronic P/L to show the wrong open P/L, based on the pit contract. The only instance where this might be tolerable is if a pit order was pending or executed on the same side-by-side contract. However, this activity is happening even when no pit order is made, let alone contemplated.

 

Let's stop and think about this for a second.

 

You are trading the 30 yr bond electronic contract (ZB). It has a side-by-side fungible pit contract (US) as well. This means that you can open one position on either contract, and close it out on the other, if you like.

 

With OEC you have the luxury of being able to trade pit contracts via the DOM without having to pick up the phone and call your pit broker. So the DOM for pit contracts looks and feels pretty much the same as the DOM for electronic contract (except that there isn't a price ladder full of pending orders).

 

If you place a pit order, the open P/L will be displayed on the DOM, in the same manner as an electronic order. Where the contracts are side-by-side, the same open position will be reflected on the other contract, since you can close out the position with either contract.

 

However, the quotes for each contract may differ, since the pit and electronic contracts are "separate but equal" contracts. So during open outcry hours (RTH), you can have two different prices for essentially the same instrument - one pit-traded, and one electronically-traded.

 

But what if you are trading electronically, and don't really care about the pit-contract? Well, the open P/L for your trade should be based solely upon the electronic contract - after all, that's what you're trading, isn't it.

 

Only if you choose to exit your position on the pit contract, should the P/L change if the quote is different.

 

So, let's say you have an open position on the ZB 30 yr bond electronic sometime during RTH. Say 10 cars. Decent size, right? And the open P/L in the DOM ***and*** Account Summary both show $312.50 (tick value is $31.25/tick).

 

Whoo-hoo! You think you've got a winner - one tick is better than nothing. Your limit order is hit, and your position is closed. But wait!

 

To your chagrin, your Realized P/L on the Account Summary is FLAT? How is that?

 

Turns out that the OPEN P/L you saw was based on the pit contract which was one tick up on the electronic quote. But the REAL P/L for your contract was NOT shown on the DOM or account summary - until the contract was closed, and the P/L was "realized".

 

It may not be a big deal if you are "nickel-and-dime"ing it one contract at a time, but start pushing a few contracts and this issue could bite you one day too.

[ant 10]

As for the net capital, it is above the requirement set by the CFTC and NFA. I'll email my contact and see what the response is to that number and let you know what I find out.

 

Brownsfan, do you know what the CFTC and NFA requirement is and what happens when a firm falls below the requirement? I thought the requirement was $1M in net capital and Open ECry has $1.029M according to the link. Anyway, I'll wait to see what you find out.

[ant 10]

One other thing....

 

There's an old issue that has resurfaced with this recent release (3.1.1.1) concerning the display of the correct open P/L on the DOM for side-by-side electronic and pit contracts. This value also shows up incorrectly in the open P/L on the Account Summary.

 

Not good! That's worse than TradeStation showing cumulative daily P&L in their Matrix.

[brownsfan019 17]

Brownsfan, do you know what the CFTC and NFA requirement is and what happens when a firm falls below the requirement? I thought the requirement was $1M in net capital and Open ECry has $1.029M according to the link. Anyway, I'll wait to see what you find out.

 

Here is what I found out tonight regarding the capital that is reported on the CFTC report:

 

We have the same question from most of the larger clients or IBs we are in talks with. We basically keep a bit more than the minimum requirement. We have ready capital in reserve that we can / do bring in to support additional business as required.

 

Now, I've dealt with this contact since day one of my talks with OEC in considering brining my biz there, so I trust his word. This is not just a regular broker you deal with at OEC.

[brownsfan019 17]

Cooter - you will be happy to know that OEC is aware of the situation you have outlined here and Rob is working on the fix. It has something to do with time stamps. No ETA given at this point.

[brownsfan019 17]

A few thoughts...

 

A button on the DOM itself to manually re-center would be nice. Something where you could easily turn on and off centering on the DOM itself, without having to mess with the DOM settings dialog.

 

Cooter - doesn't the 'Go To Last' button the DOM do exactly what you are asking here?

 

 

 

 

 

And if you just want to center it manually, you could just turn off the 'Auto Center Price' in the setup:

 

[Guest cooter]

Cooter - doesn't the 'Go To Last' button the DOM do exactly what you are asking here?

 

 

 

 

Yeah, must have been late at night for me too. Guess it's the placement of where that button is located on the DOM that made me think it wasn't there...

 

I'm loathe to even think of touching that button though for fear of accidentally sending a market order through - although I suppose that turning the order confirmation back on would alleviate that concern.

[Guest cooter]

Cooter - you will be happy to know that OEC is aware of the situation you have outlined here and Rob is working on the fix. It has something to do with time stamps. No ETA given at this point.

 

Well, "timestamps" seems like a specious reason to me, IMHO, when it's actually the logic of using pit quotes to calculate open P/L on an electronic contract that is the core issue.

[brownsfan019 17]

I hear ya, it was a late night for me as well. Should have been... :sleep:

[Guest cooter]

Anyone have problems with OEC and their bracket orders lately?

[brownsfan019 17]

Anyone have problems with OEC and their bracket orders lately?

 

Ok here. What's been going on?

[Guest cooter]

Bracket orders not filling properly.

 

Stops and targets (OCO) on bracket not entered/held when main order accepted.

 

Or main order triggered, and bracket order stops and targets rejected and cancelled outright.

 

This puts both me and OEC at risk when stops and targets for intended brackets aren't accepted and are cancelled, while the main order sits live and working.

 

IMHO, they should reject the entire bracket order if any piece of it is not going to being filled or accepted to begin with.

 

Supposedly there's a fix going into the system this evening.

[Reaver 10]

There apparently was some sort of major fiasco the other day over at OEC...Brownsfan, did you hear any new info on what may have happened?

[Guest cooter]

There apparently was some sort of major fiasco the other day over at OEC...

 

Well, some folks had their bracket orders "disappear", only to find that they were still alive and working, but not appearing on the DOM.

 

Here's a few posts elsewhere about it: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103390

 

Curious to hear what you've found out about what's going on over there too.

[brownsfan019 17]

Per your requests...

A brief break-down of the issue on Friday:

The CME servers (as a standard practice) send out a "heartbeat" request to all of their incoming connections at regular intervals. If the CME doesn't not receive a response back within specified parameters, it will effectively disable that connection to the exchange. At 10:26AM the response from OEC to the CME was not received and our connection was disabled by the exchange. At 10:35AM the connection was restored but was not performing as expected. Our tech team made a decision to resolve the issue but resetting the connection at 11:42AM.

 

The particular issue has been isolated and addressed.

 

We take great pride in our up-time and reliability and go to pretty extensive lengths to strive for 100% uptime. I will also note that we went to great length on Friday to address any reported customer issues. If a customer reported an issue, we did some verification and agreed to do a full refund (not too many other firms do this...and I don't think we get much (any) credit for the way we handle such issues)

 

 

-----------------------------

 

Here's my take - sh*t happens. It happens at most/all brokers at some point. What counts is how the broker handles it. While at TradeStation, if something like this happened and I requested any type of refund or reimbursement, they would have laughed and said 'read the agreement you signed'. Same thing at ProActive. Same thing when I was a stockbroker - if a system went down, oh well, tough luck.

 

So, if OEC is willing to back their stuff up with MONEY, that works for me.

[Reaver 10]

Per your requests...

A brief break-down of the issue on Friday:

The CME servers (as a standard practice) send out a "heartbeat" request to all of their incoming connections at regular intervals. If the CME doesn't not receive a response back within specified parameters, it will effectively disable that connection to the exchange. At 10:26AM the response from OEC to the CME was not received and our connection was disabled by the exchange. At 10:35AM the connection was restored but was not performing as expected. Our tech team made a decision to resolve the issue but resetting the connection at 11:42AM.

 

The particular issue has been isolated and addressed.

 

We take great pride in our up-time and reliability and go to pretty extensive lengths to strive for 100% uptime. I will also note that we went to great length on Friday to address any reported customer issues. If a customer reported an issue, we did some verification and agreed to do a full refund (not too many other firms do this...and I don't think we get much (any) credit for the way we handle such issues)

 

 

-----------------------------

 

Here's my take - sh*t happens. It happens at most/all brokers at some point. What counts is how the broker handles it. While at TradeStation, if something like this happened and I requested any type of refund or reimbursement, they would have laughed and said 'read the agreement you signed'. Same thing at ProActive. Same thing when I was a stockbroker - if a system went down, oh well, tough luck.

 

So, if OEC is willing to back their stuff up with MONEY, that works for me.

 

You are definitely right.

 

I wasn't aware of the outcome. Thanks for posting that.

 

Money Talks- BS Walks. Most definitely.

 

That is impressive.

[brownsfan019 17]

Money Talks- BS Walks. Most definitely.

 

 

You said it. Words mean nothing to me if you can't back them up.

 

OEC obviously talks the talk and walks the walk.

 

I stand by my ringing endorsement of OEC as the ONE futures firm that you SHOULD be trading at.

[Guest cooter]

I stand by my ringing endorsement of OEC as the ONE futures firm that you SHOULD be trading at.

 

Have they fixed the outstanding issue with bracket orders yet? This is another issue that caused problems for some traders recently. I didn't see a fix or upgrade yet....

 

IMHO, when you get to the point of having to run Camtasia Studio on all your trades, "just in case", you have to wonder....

[brownsfan019 17]

Have they fixed the outstanding issue with bracket orders yet? This is another issue that caused problems for some traders recently. I didn't see a fix or upgrade yet....

 

IMHO, when you get to the point of having to run Camtasia Studio on all your trades, "just in case", you have to wonder....

 

My brackets are fine Cooter, so I didn't ask.

 

If it's that big of a concern, then shop around and see what's out there. There's plenty of FCM's and IB's to trade through; however, I wonder how many would step up AND take responsibility like OEC has done.

[Reaver 10]

I don't know a whole lot about OEC and a few things always seemed weird to me, as other brokers have their own quirks...but to back up a statement like that with MONEY....that earns some respect...Word are cheap and easy...but once again Money Talks-BS Walks.

 

I'll give it to OEC on this one. I definitely noticed.