Safety of funds
We prioritize the safety of your funds through strict regulatory compliance and security measures
The safety of your funds is very important to us. You can be assured that TradeStation does not engage in any proprietary trading. TradeStation Securities operates as a subsidiary of our parent company, TradeStation Group, Inc., which in turn is owned by Monex Group, Inc. Monex Group, Inc. is among Japan’s leading financial services companies and is subject to stringent oversight by Japanese regulatory authorities. TradeStation is subject to stringent U.S. industry regulations and account-protection requirements and has continuous reporting requirements that are subject to regulatory review and regular audits. These regulatory requirements include reserve and segregation requirements for your equities and futures accounts.
Equity accounts (held at TradeStation Securities, Inc.)
Brokerage firms are required to follow certain rules that are designed to minimize the chances of financial failure and, more important, to protect customer assets if they do fail. For example, the SEC’s Rule 15c3-1 — the “Net Capital Rule” — requires brokerage firms to maintain certain levels of their own liquid assets. The minimum net capital a firm must have on hand depends on its size and business. As of March 31, 2024, TradeStation Securities, Inc. had net capital of approximately $218.1 million, which was approximately $204.6 million in excess of its required net capital of approximately $13.5 million.
In addition, the SEC’s Rule 15c3-3 — the “Customer Protection Rule” — requires brokerage firms that have custody of customer assets to keep those assets separate from their own accounts. In other words, customers’ cash must be placed in a special, separate “reserve” account, and fully paid customer securities must be kept separate from firm and customer margin securities. As of March 31, 2024, TradeStation Securities, Inc. had approximately $1.4 billion of customer funds reserved and segregated in clearly identified bank accounts, in compliance with Rule 15c3-3. The amount required to be segregated is computed weekly. As an additional safety precaution, TradeStation maintains funds in excess of the required amount to be segregated from its own proprietary funds.
Your TradeStation equities accounts are further protected with SIPC insurance. SIPC insures your equities accounts up to $500,000, including $250,000 for cash. Beyond this, TradeStation has arranged for additional protection through Lloyd’s of London, insuring each account up to $24.5 million, subject to a $900,000 per account maximum for cash, with an aggregate firm limit of $200 million. For more information on SIPC coverage, we encourage you to visit the SIPC website.
Futures accounts (held at TradeStation Securities, Inc.)
TradeStation Securities Inc., as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) that carries customer accounts, is subject to the Customer Protection Rule requirements of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Rules 1.20 and 30.7. These rules state that the company is required to maintain enough cash and cash equivalents in special reserve accounts, and identified as such, to cover at all times the required segregation reserve amounts.
The reserve requirement must be calculated daily and filed electronically through the National Futures Association’s (NFA) web-based WinJammer system. Additionally, the company must also properly segregate these funds from any other proprietary bank account of the company. As of March 31, 2024, TradeStation had $908.9 million segregated in accordance with the above CFTC requirements. For detailed information, please see the Firm’s FCM disclosures.
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