Commodity Futures Trading Brokers, Discount Online Futures Broker, and Futures Option Trading by Insignia Futures and Options

WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND READING THIS ENTIRE WEB PAGE BEFORE
BEGINNING TO TRADE IN YOUR ACCOUNT AS IT CONTAINS
IMPORTANT ACCOUNT AND TRADING INFORMATION.

Notice to our Self-Directed-Discount Plan clients: You acknowledge that you alone are responsible for determining the suitability of your investment & trade choices and investment & trade strategies in light of your particular circumstances and you understand that Insignia Futures & Options assumes no responsibility for such choices or determinations. You further acknowledge that all orders and trades are unsolicited (unless provided to you through our Broker-Assistance or Full-service account plans upon your request), and that commodity futures market values can and do fluctuate. Insignia Futures & Options cannot advise you nor comment concerning the nature, risk or suitability of any commodity, futures position, transaction or investment strategy. You also recognize that Insignia Futures & Options does not give legal or tax advice.
With the exception of Broker-Assisted and/or Full-Service account plan orders, for which a higher fee is charged, you agree to effect all transactions in your Insignia Futures & Options trading account via Insignia Futures & Options internet trading platforms and/or via our phone in order desk and to receive all communications from Insignia Futures & Options via e-mail. Such communications will include but not necessarily be limited to margin calls, contract expiration notices, modifications of trades or orders, confirmations of transactions, account statements, tax documents and reports of portfolio holdings, notices of modifications to Insignia Futures & Options Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions, as well as other basic communications. Please contact our offices upon any email address changes you may have to ensure receipt of our email messages.

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How Day Trades are Offset as Compared to Position Trades
Clients should be aware of the methods in which trades are offset and cleared. The most important aspect to remember is that matching trades made during the same trading session will always be matched together first. For example, let us assume you are Long a November Soybean contract that you have been holding from 3 days ago. Today, you place an order to Sell a November Soybean contract. When the Sell trade has been filled, it will be matched or offset against the Long positions being held from 3 days ago. Now, later that same day (trading session) you Buy a November Soybean to initiate a new Long position. When this Buy order is filled it will be matched/offset against the Short trade you made earlier in the day and the Long position from 3 days ago will be put back into your account still leaving you Long the market. This can be somewhat confusing so we have created a detailed Positions Offset Explanation for you to review and print our for further reference.

Quotes and Bid/Ask Price Accuracy
Our trading platforms provide live quote data as transmitted by the exchanges. At times, the pit traded exchanges may not be reporting or updating data, particularly Bid/Ask price data. It is always recommended that you trade the most active month possible to avoid extreme price slippage when using Market orders.

Option quotes (Last price and Bid/Ask prices) are especially subject to outdated or "stale" quotes due to the extremely low trading volume for particular strike prices. This occurs due to the fact that the exchanges only transmit price data when a trade occurs and/or a Bid or Ask price changes. You may be looking at a quote on a certain option strike price that could actually be from a trade made a day ago. When trading options, it is highly recommended to use Limit orders as opposed to Market orders to avoid extreme price slippage. You may also contact our trading desk at 800-588-9055 to obtain a current Bid/Ask on a particular option strike price.

Submitting on-line futures and futures options orders
When placing on-line orders, it is important that the order "Submit" button be only clicked once. Clicking the "Submit" button more than once will result in multiple order being transmitted to the exchange for execution. It is common for a delay of up to 20 seconds to occur once the "Submit" button has been clicked before the order acceptance screen appears with your ticket number. If you are in doubt of an order being submitted, please contact our order desk immediately to verify all orders placed by calling our toll free number...1-800-588-9055.

Obtaining Quotes & Charts for Electronically Traded Markets
To obtain a quote and/or a chart for a market that has both a Pit session and an Electronic session, use the following symbol formats to differentiate between the 2 sessions.

Use the contract regular symbol for the Pit session. For the electronic session/exchange, place an "@" sign in front of the symbol. For example, the regular (Pit) symbol for Dec'06 Corn is C6Z. The electronic session/exchange symbol for Dec'06 Corn is @C6Z.

Please note: it is not necessary to use an "@" symbol for markets that exclusively trade electronically. For example, the E-mini S&P 500 does not have a Pit traded session and would not need an "@" sign to obtain a quote or chart. The "@" symbol is only necessary to differentiate contracts that have 2 different trading sessions.

Canceling & Replacing Orders Cannot Always be Done
Although our trading platform will give you the opportunity to Cancel or Replace (modify) an open working order. There are instances when this can be practically impossible.

As our trading platform routes all submitted orders directly to the appropriate exchange within 1 second, it is practically impossible to cancel or replace a Market order. Market orders are filled within seconds of reaching the exchange.

When you cancel or replace an order, a cancel order or replace order is then transmitted to the appropriate exchange for investigation. The floor broker or clerk will now have to verify that the original order has not already been filled. If it found that the original order has not been filled, the cancel or replace order will then be accepted. If the original order was already filled prior to the order modification, then they will report back the cancel or replace order as " Rejected, Too Late To Cancel/Replace ". The investigation of cancel/replace orders is time consuming for the floor brokers and clerks and as such typically takes 20 - 30 minutes (this time can greatly increase under certain market conditions) to report if the modification is rejected or not. Also for this fact, the floor brokers & clerks request that clients keep modification orders to a minimum. Clients abusing this process by entering repeated modification orders can have all of their orders rejected by the floor brokers for the remainder of the trading day.

Fill Reports and Reported Fill Times
A very common misconception is how and when order fill prices are reported. Our trading platform routes all orders to the appropriate exchange within 1 second of submittal. Market orders will be filled upon entering the exchange, Stop and Limit order will be received and will then begin working at the exchange. Once an order is filled, it is then handed off to a floor clerk who then transmits the fill price to our servers which then shows in your trading account. Although an order has been filled, there are many factors which can delay the fill from being reported. Fast market conditions, and excessive trading volume are two of the most common situations that typically delay fill reports.

When a fill is reported, it will appear in your "Order Status" and "Filled Orders" screens and will be time stamped. This time stamp is when the fill price was reported, NOT when the order was filled.

For more details, please review our online Trading & Account Platform tutorial or contact our offices for additional assistance.