Any one know Interactive Brokers?

Question

Is "interactive brokers" a good broker site? Their commision is only one dollar per trade. Are there any better discount brokers out there?

Yada Yada Yada, ur advise is amazing,,, im concering with cheap commisions because im planning to do some significant amount of trades on a weekly basis. For example, scottrade is one of the cheap ones, while its $7 a trade. So if i do 15 trades a week, thats a $105. I think thats alot. So Interactive Brokers sounds the best. But I dont know if they have stop loss orders. If they dont, I would re-consider them. Do you know if they do or not?

Answer 1

"Better" all depends on how you define it. IB is pretty good, but there are some plusses and minuses, just like with any broker.

They often clear inhouse which means you may not always get the lowest price possible on all types of trades.

They are software based which means it will take you a while, and possibly some $$ until you get orders down to a smooth process.

That said, there are a lot of good brokerages depending on what you like and how you trade.

Barron's has a great article on brokerages that they publish each year. (Latest one was in March 6, 2006)

Here’s the link to the Barron’s article.
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1550280182488.html

Here’s the link to the Kiplinger’s July 2006 article which isn’t bad either.
http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2006/07/brokers.html


For basic stuff, E*Trade, Ameritrade, and Scottrade are sufficient. For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers.

Based on what you put in your question, I'd recommend one of the first three, but all are very good. Cheapest probably is scottrade (of the larger online firms). And IB is very cheap too. In fact, they're only about $1/contract on options! If you trade a lot (which it doesn't look like you do), you might get an even lower rate.

Brokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience.

So, decide what's important to you as a trader and compare the brokers! You can use the articles, or go to each website as they all seem to have comparison charts!

And if there are particular things that you want to mention as being most important to you (such as executions, cust svc, cheapest trade - which you mentioned, flexibility on allowing you to do certain types of trades, stop and stop limit orders, contingent orders, great graphing, what if scenarios, training, etc), I'll be glad to help discuss this with you too!

If you have any questions, let me know.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

$1 is a minimum commission for IB...it is $0.005/share. So if you trade 200 shares or less, it is $1...1,000 shares, $5, etc. If you end up trading say 5,000 shares, it is $25. The thing is that at least for me, I end up in a lot of illiquid markets, so I'm not usually trading much more than 500-1,000 shares at a time, so the $0.005/share works out well for me. They also have good options commissions, and you can trade futures contracts if that is your thing (I do an occasional futures trade, so it works out well for me). They also charge you $10/month for quotes in any month where you don't generate $30 in commissions. My experience on execution is that they do a good job. That's probably a bigger factor than commissions, in that you can lose several cents a share on slippage. I use a lot of limit orders...my experience with IB is that they all show in the market...other brokers sometimes don't show, which is frustrating. Their interface takes some getting used to, but once you get used to it, it is great. Also, they don't pay interest on the first $10,000 you have in cash...their rates after $10,000 are pretty good. If you are 100% invested...this doesn't matter, but if you have a lot in cash, it can.

Answer 3

For a very active trader that likes to trade in many markets, then IB is the best broker you can find, their commission is the lowest for active traders, their trade execution is flawless. IB is pretty well known in the elite trader circle

Answer 4

I used to work with interactivebrokers in 2002 or 2003, I don't remeber well. Their comission was 1 cent per one share traded, which was the lowest possible. I think they still have the lowest possible price. Check their website!

Answer 5

go to http://www.tdameridtrade.com

Answer 6

HUh?