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A different Commodity Broker experience

Attain was founded with the simple idea of being a different type of futures firm. The classic futures broker is often in it for a quick buck, constantly needing new clients to offset the ones who lose money and close their accounts, and generally more interested in how they are going to make money than how the client can make money.

How it works at Attain

The philosophy at Attain is completely different, where our futures brokers actually look out for the client's best interest, where it isn't all about commissions and fees, and where our brokers tell you not what they think you want to hear, but what they think is best for you.

We realize most commodity brokers say such things, and are only too happy to give some examples of how we are different. A prime example is that our futures brokers actually recommend clients purchase Treasury Bills so they can earn interest in their account. Most other commodity brokers never mention this possibility, as they earn the interest on the client's money if it isn't in a security such as Treasury Bills. Another example is that we don't offer online futures trading; we are not an online futures broker because we have never seen anyone make money trading futures online.

Attain's services start with one of our futures brokers working one on one with investors to select a trading system, managed futures program, or managed forex program (or portfolio containing some of each) which best fits with their investing goals and risk appetite. This includes sharing our due diligence reports, computer backtesting, personal experience with the advisors, and statistical performance evaluations.

Once a selection is made, Attain assists investors in getting an account open and funded - acting as the liaison between the client, advisor, and clearing firm to insure all of the proper paperwork and disclosures are signed off on.

After the account has started trading, Attain's commodity brokers monitor the account daily on behalf of the client to ensure that performance is tracking with historical averages, that the advisor is following his/her strategy, that system signals are correctly lining up, and that the fees being charged by the advisor are correct.

Finally, your futures broker will work with you to manage the overall portfolio, setting up sub- accounts for multiple advisor trading and tracking, relating multiple accounts' margin balances to enable notional trading, hedging currency risk for foreign investors, and setting up cash accounts which earn interest through U.S. Treasury Bills.

Added Benefits

There are several added benefits of having your Futures Trading Account traded through Attain:

• Attain recommends all investors hold as much of their account value as possible in interest bearing T-Bills. Many other commodity brokers tell investors futures accounts do not earn interest, don't mention T-Bills, or allow you to buy T-Bills on the margin excess balance of your account only. Read more about earning interest in your futures account here
• Attain allows foreign investors to hold their accounts in Euros, Swiss francs, British Pounds, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, and more. There is no need to convert the account into US dollars, and there is no extra paperwork needed! This opens up the possibility for access to top rated US Dollar based managers without the US Dollar risk. Your entire initial investment would remain in your local currency, with only profits and losses from the trading of the account in US Dollars.
• Attain monitors client's accounts on a daily basis. We check to insure the trades in your account are consistent with the trades issued by the trading system or managed futures program invested in, and that those trades are in line with the programs trading strategy and risk profile. For example, a trend following advisor who suddenly starts doing naked Natural Gas options would raise a red flag. We also monitor whether the fees being deducted from your account are being calculated correctly.
• Attain sets up a master account for each client, with one account for the client's cash balance and several sub accounts related to it for the trading and tracking of different CTAs and trading systems. This allows clients to quickly see how much each advisor is up or down in the individual sub accounts, while the master account shows the total account balance. Even if only trading a single program ‐ Attain still sets up two sub accounts for clients, one for the cash deposited in the account and one for the CTA to trade in. T-Bills are purchased in the cash account only, insuring that the client keeps 100% of the interest on the account, as the CTA is entitled to 20% of the profits in the account he/she manages.
• For more sophisticated investors who wish to leverage their available cash to trade multiple managers notionally ‐ Attain's futures brokers assist investors in cross margining different accounts to enable them to trade a total notional amount greater than their actual invested capital. ($100,000 traded as $500,000, for example).
• Whether it be adding a contract for every $10,000 in profits and subtracting one for every $10,000 in losses, risking no more than 1.35% of equity across a portfolio of day, swing, and trend following systems, or implementing advanced sector filters or position limits - Attain follows any special instructions or money management techniques to a tee. You can also select an exact date you wish to begin taking system signals (instructing us to wait until the next signal, wait for a drawdown 25% of the tested maximum drawdown, etc.) and give special "cut off" instructions to stop a system (instructing us to stop if hits 1.5 times Max DD, the account falls below a certain dollar level, etc.)
• We notify you with Custom Reports. We constantly monitor individual client performance, from individual systems within portfolios to correlations between portfolio components. Should a system move outside of its tested risk parameters by eclipsing its stop trade level (usually 1.5 times its pre-release max DD) or the correlation between a pair of systems in a clients portfolio start to increase dramatically - we notify clients by phone or email.