IB platform

[Student of Gann]

Hello this programme is very frustrating and overly complicated to use . I have tried to locate an email address or contact for this Company as there is nothing on their website. Hopefully I can get used to this platform as I have just signed up for a trial but the initial experience was very frustrating and tedious - I have glanced at a few tutorials which look overly complicated but cant find anything that presents a straight forward operational usage guide as to how to setup charts and basic order placement. The main issue is with the basic structure of the programme - is there a tab at the top of the chart where I can select bar chart or candles - I spent 20 minutes searching for this basic format alone a feature which is standard on most platforms , there was a button that said candles which I pressed four times only to be stuck with a line graph - the layout is very awkward and cumbersome to use or maybe I am not setting the page up correctly . No email address or point of contact leaving users confused as to how to properly configure the programme - at least IG have an assistant I can talk with - first pass very frustrating and overly complicated but I will need to learn it .

Managed to open the account but the chart is very cumbersome and awkward to work with .
how can I compress the chart so it will display say from 2018 - current . most standard charting platforms have this feature where you can press the arrow back or forth to compress the chart and display a larger timeframe without having to manually enter a fixed date period turning an ordinary straight forward task into an ordeal .
Also I noted that I was unable to press the right or left chart arrow at the bottom of the screen to display a bit of space between the last bar and the corner of the chart another standard feature on most basic charting programmes as I like to have a bit of blank chart on the far right hand side to use but it appears that I cant or dont know how to do this with the IB platform .
Also tried to perform a basic search for CBA in the help / ticker lookup on the right hand side - the most basic of searches and was bombarded with another message - Feature Search enter a function or Command Name - I am not sending an Astronaut to the Moon I just merely want to display a price chart but I do notice they have a large clear promotional box prompting me to refer this product to a friend which works effortlessly unlike most of their other settings - maybe I just havent properly learnt how to apply the settings but compared to other programmes I have trialled the degree of complexity to perform an otherwise simple automated task that I would apply in another programme is clearly lacking in the IB platform - hopefully it gets easier or will I need a pilots license to apply a simple trendline .
It looks it wont allow me to scroll the chart back to compress it and display larger time period like most programmes do

 

[qldfrog]

Good luck with IB
After all the pain of opening accounts etc, i got into a glitch before even being able to trade i needed to fill a form, with the form link provided failing lamely .
So no form, no completion of "enrolment" , impossible to trade use the account. i diligently did a support submission,,that was roughly maybe a year ago? And never heard back from them ever.
Amazed anyone can throw hard earned cash in such a system.imho looking for horror ending if anything out of the ordinary happens .
Many people here seem to be happy with them, probably never had to go outside of well run processes, but that was a welcome glitch as this tells me that if)when **** hits the fan, your ib account will be deep in it.
I have no shorts on IB shares or shares in competitors,just a telling first experience.

 

[qldfrog]

Good luck with IB
After all the pain of opening accounts etc, i got into a glitch before even being able to trade i needed to fill a form, with the form link provided failing lamely .
So no form, no completion of "enrolment" , impossible to trade use the account. i diligently did a support submission,,that was roughly maybe a year ago? And never heard back from them ever.
Amazed anyone can throw hard earned cash in such a system.imho looking for horror ending if anything out of the ordinary happens .
Many people here seem to be happy with them, probably never had to go outside of well run processes, but that was a welcome glitch as this tells me that if)when **** hits the fan, your ib account will be deep in it.
I have no shorts on IB shares or shares in competitors,just a telling first experience.

A good reminder i need to ensure i remove all my initial account opening $ from there if not done yet

 

[Student of Gann]

Yes I had a similar experience when I tried to fill in the data and open an account . I answered all of the questions and put in what I thought was the correct data only to be informed that the account was not active/or there was some issue so after 30 minutes I just gave up . This morning a tried to locate an email address only to be directed to the IBKR support centre where I was again bombarded with a range of choices before I finally located a red button saying email which I pressed and was then presented with another wall of questions which I navigated through in the end of couldn't even send a simple email to this company the simplest of functions that is available on just about every other platform . I am glad I didn't commit funds to this group and will delete their icon from my Browser after hours of frustration . Thanks for the assistance and advice but a very frustrating ordeal with this IB service. I wonder if any Company execs are watching this thread ?

 

[Roller_1]

IB is more aimed at professionals and people who need advanced API connectivity.. Their customer support is definitely terrible and trying to get an answer out of them is near impossible. But I guess this is the way of them keeping their rates low. They are the cheapest for commissions and margin I believe.

I use them but I do not use their charting platform because like you said it is not the best.

 

[Boggo]

I too had a look at them years ago when Morrisons got taken over and I had to find a new online broker.
I ended up going back to Commsec who I had been with years earlier when they used to have some issues as the whole IB process just seemed way too messy just for me to run a SMSF and two trading acoounts.

Happy now with Commsec, a few minor issues but they were generally more to do with my browsers than their Iress platform.

 

[Sharkman]

i'm one of those who has been very happy with IB's service over the years.

my trading style is a lot simpler than most of you though, most of the time i'm just selling covered calls and cash covered puts on IB, i'm not doing any detailed TA as i don't need everything to line up precisely for that kind of thing, it just has to be close enough for me to think that on balance i should be able to collect some decent decay. like Roller_1 i don't use their charting platform, i don't even use their live pricing as there's a monthly fee for that, i just grab the live prices for free off my ripoff CHESS broker account and manually plug them into my spreadsheet to check the greeks etc.

basically just use IB for execution only and for that they have been fantastic, even better than advertised (they advertise 30c a contract for ASX ETOs, but they have only been charging me 17c a contract for the last couple of years, don't know why but i'm certainly not going to complain).

did have a few difficulties setting up my corporate trust account but that was always going to be the case with that type of account, they did assign someone to step me thru the process so i was generally satisfied with the level of service there too. this was over a decade ago though, so possibly they have cut back on their customer service department since then.

 

[qldfrog]

I too had a look at them years ago when Morrisons got taken over and I had to find a new online broker.
I ended up going back to Commsec who I had been with years earlier when they used to have some issues as the whole IB process just seemed way too messy just for me to run a SMSF and two trading acoounts.

Happy now with Commsec, a few minor issues but they were generally more to do with my browsers than their Iress platform.

Options support and pricing is lacking with commsec.i just use them for long term ASX investments.
Bell direct for ASX trading and saxo platform for options/NYSE...good but not ideal .
At least i get support if i need it

 

[Student of Gann]

Thanks I use Ganntrader as my primary vehicle which has all of the tools I require to reach and formulate a trading plan . In addition to GT I also keep a set of hand drawn charts and various tables on different stocks and Indexes so this approach works quite well and is a system I am very familiar with but the next step is to find an online platform that I can use as an instrument to place the trade. May have a look at me ninja trader perhaps ? I would only be looking at executing two or three trades per month so saving a few dollars here and there is not a priority compared to locating a user friendly interface that will enable me to enter straight forward trades on Grain contracts , not cfds thanks