Interactive Brokers

[village idiot]

g'day guys,

I have been trading for a little while with OptionsXpress and the only reason why I am looking for a change is because I want to buy some Blue Chip shares with the Aussie banks. Unfortunately OX doesn't allow trades out here.

Came across IB from this forum and it looks alright. Just want to hear some opinions.

I do weekly covered calls and like i said want to buy a few Blue Chips on a weekly/fortnightly basis, is IB worth signing up for it all?

OX is pretty lame with the reports that I can give to my accountant, does IB offer something half decent?

The other company I am looking at is Charles Schwab, anyone know anything about them?

https://www.schwab.com/

Cheers,
Mitch

IB in a nutshell;
account opening ; hard work
cost; cheapest by far
user friendliness, trading; fantastic once you figure it out
user friendliness, eg margin issues, customer service; ****house
reports; as someone else once said, the most useless piece of ****e going. I cant imagine what would happen if you just gave these to an accountant without first translating it into something he can make sense out of.

 

[FIGJAM]

Thanks for the information

 

[village idiot]

a new twist to watch out for regarding receiveing a 'payment in lieu' instead of a dividend. These shares were in a super account and so no margin was invloved, yet I stll got a PIL (thus losing the franking credits) on a small proportion of them, apparently because they were settled on the same day as the date of record......



Dear Mr. xxxxx,

In your particular situation you purchased the xxxxx shares of BHP on Aug 31. The customer protection rules require that the broker determine the segregation requirement as of the close of the settlement date, Sept 5, which are then to be enforced the following day. As the shares were not subject to segregation on Sept 5, the dividend record date (based on Ex-Date + 2), your account received a PIL. In the future, you would need to purchase the shares two days prior to the ex-dividend date to ensure that they are segregated.

Best regards,
xxxx L
IB Customer Service

 

[Kryzz]

Does anyone know how to (if) you can display interest accruals (short & long) on IB's TWS platform? Trying to keep track of the swap when trading fx positions.

Cheers!

 

[geeroy]

a new twist to watch out for regarding receiveing a 'payment in lieu' instead of a dividend. These shares were in a super account and so no margin was invloved, yet I stll got a PIL (thus losing the franking credits) on a small proportion of them, apparently because they were settled on the same day as the date of record......



Dear Mr. xxxxx,

In your particular situation you purchased the xxxxx shares of BHP on Aug 31. The customer protection rules require that the broker determine the segregation requirement as of the close of the settlement date, Sept 5, which are then to be enforced the following day. As the shares were not subject to segregation on Sept 5, the dividend record date (based on Ex-Date + 2), your account received a PIL. In the future, you would need to purchase the shares two days prior to the ex-dividend date to ensure that they are segregated.

Best regards,
xxxx L
IB Customer Service

hmm I would tell them the dividend record date is ExDate + 4 in Australia..

in any case how do you know you lose the franking credits? The EOFY dividend statement IB provide list the franking credits attached to PIL as well as normal dividends.

 

[freebird54]

Been with IB for years - shares worldwide ok

option trading here in OZ brokerage only $2

TWS complicated

Webtrader easy for rolling options - you can roll for a credit which you nominate

trades always seem to go through

 

[boofis]

Level II data for US Treasuries ZN and ZB, it doesn't appear that IB offers it :S anyone care to enlighten me if they are more competent at navigating IB?

 

[pavilion103]

Is it possible to create multiple accounts per user? Does this require much effort?

 

[bellenuit]

Is it possible to create multiple accounts per user? Does this require much effort?

Yes you can. It is similar to creating the first account, although from memory there are a few authentication steps that you don't have to do the second and subsequent times.

If the other accounts are created to make it easier to manage your portfolio and not for active trading, for instance to separate stocks held for investment from those held for trading, remember the minimum monthly activity fee of USD 10.00 applies to each individual account and not to your overall multiaccount activity for the one user. So again using my example of creating a separate account for stocks held for investments, you will be paying a minimum of USD 120 a year just to have that account open even if there are no transactions against it.

I eventually closed my second account for that very reason.

 

[kastin]

has anybody noticed an increase in data download time?

it seems i am getting throttled all the time now, just moving between aud and euro it wont download the last hours data?

anybody else having trouble (i run amibroker with IB API)

cheers
jon

 

[bellenuit]

How do I enrol in a DRP for shares held through IB? For shares held through other brokers, I normally can do it through the share registry, but that doesn't apply with IB held shares.

 

[titl4]

IB in a nutshell;
........................................
reports; as someone else once said, the most useless piece of ****e going. I cant imagine what would happen if you just gave these to an accountant without first translating it into something he can make sense out of.

IMO that view is only because the full annual report is so detailed - and much of it is of no interest to the accountant. Custom reports are available which remove much of the overhead although I prefer to provide the whole thing with a cover sheet and tabs in the document to direct the accountant to the relevant bits. That way I save money with the accountant but still have all the nuts and bolts with my tax data in case I need it at some stage.

 

[bailx]

Been doing my best to read through this thread and learn a bit more about IB. Theres a bit about interactive, most of it positive thoughts. so I'm thinking about and looking into opening an interactive account. Now there is really one main reason why i would or wouldn't join interactive.
So I'm hoping some one out there whom has an account with interactive can share a bit more light on IB and been using them for a bit. I need a bit more incite towards trading with them.
I guess what I really need to know is Pricing..... I hear Cheap how cheap? There Forex programme and trading platform ( not MT4 ). DO you think there TWS is up to standards. Whats so good about it? The stocks they trade are they only CFD's. Do they trade all of the ASX?

Anyone whom answers this post i thank dearly....

 

[Trembling Hand]

Been doing my best to read through this thread and learn a bit more about IB. Theres a bit about interactive, most of it positive thoughts. so I'm thinking about and looking into opening an interactive account. Now there is really one main reason why i would or wouldn't join interactive.
So I'm hoping some one out there whom has an account with interactive can share a bit more light on IB and been using them for a bit. I need a bit more incite towards trading with them.
I guess what I really need to know is Pricing..... I hear Cheap how cheap? There Forex programme and trading platform ( not MT4 ). DO you think there TWS is up to standards. Whats so good about it? The stocks they trade are they only CFD's. Do they trade all of the ASX?

Anyone whom answers this post i thank dearly....

Without sounding like too much of an A-hole. TWS is 1000 times more complex than MT4. If you think Ib is about cfds and simple a platform then its probably not going to suit your needs, (my assumption being low capital, simple hit 1 of two buttons to trade and highly leveraged "free" instruments)

Now trying to sound like an A-hole. I find those that cannot get their answers from IBs website to their needs usually struggle to even open an IB account let alone figure out TWS and the 1000 of instruments you can trade.

But hey I'm just an A-hole.....

 

[tech/a]

But hey I'm just an A-hole.....

Yeh I was going to ask how the Colonoscopy went.

 

[>Apocalypto<]

Without sounding like too much of an A-hole. TWS is 1000 times more complex than MT4. If you think Ib is about cfds and simple a platform then its probably not going to suit your needs, (my assumption being low capital, simple hit 1 of two buttons to trade and highly leveraged "free" instruments)

Now trying to sound like an A-hole. I find those that cannot get their answers from IBs website to their needs usually struggle to even open an IB account let alone figure out TWS and the 1000 of instruments you can trade.

But hey I'm just an A-hole.....

NO I agree, Mt4 is very over rated imo. TWS is not main platform i used and it's not imo ment to be used for short term trading. Book Trader was one of the best things i have used. I used tws for accounting and for my watch list.

as noted, you can trade just about every market out there on the best coms. CL 1-2 tick spread with $2.5 a side!

if you spend a few hours on the webinars learning how to use tws and other platforms is not that hard. Having presets for each currency was great!

I wish i was still using IB but i don't have the cash to reopen the acc and trade properly atm.

 

[bailx]

Now trying to sound like an A-hole. I find those that cannot get their answers from IBs website to their needs usually struggle to even open an IB account let alone figure out TWS and the 1000 of instruments you can trade.

But hey I'm just an A-hole.....

That's the way, TH hands On!! Good on ya mate.

It just gets better every time. Because I certainly don't want anything to do with the MT4 as stupid as it is. I will only make it look good. And I wasn't looking for just plan CFD's. So keep ya head up. Just haven't had time to go through all IB jargon BS. I always figured after my last visit to their site, that there was a lot more to it.
Certainly got a bad feeling its going to cost a arm and a leg just to get In.
Anyway thanks for the incite. Ive already got a broker and I'm just looking at IB for future prospects. Cheers!!

 

[baby_swallow]

Mobile TWS down...

While I'm away from my PC, I use TWS iPhone or iPad for convenience.
But this morning I can't log in to the server - the Hong Kong server.
I phoned the US support and they told me the HK server is down.

I think when you log on to Mobile TWS it tries to connect to the nearest IB server,
so if you are in Oz, you will be directed to HK. There is no setting for you to change it
to another server - so you get stuck and unable to trade.

While I'm typing this (9:40am AEDT), the HK server is still down.

Not good enough IB....

 

[baby_swallow]

WE NEED AN AUSTRALIAN BASED SERVER
WE CAN'T GO ON HOSTAGED BY HONG KONG (CHINA)

 

[hawamahal]

Same here. I can't connect either on my android mobile. They really need to improve. I expect them to be more professional.