Best Thread Interactive Brokers

[bnichols]

Hey Guys,

Anyone seen the recent FOREX disclosure statement? They have turned into a market maker as a result of this recent move. Does anyone here trade FX through IB and if so what are you doing as a result of this news?

<snip>

Very dissapointed with this.

Would love your comments. Cheers.

I've traded Forex through IB for a number of years with no complaints (except the usual accounting/technical issues) and will continue to do so. It may sound alarming but seems to sum up Forex fairly accurately, reads like the usual legal boilerplate with a new-age regulatory overtone.

Adamus: is that you (from BMT)?

 

[pepcaro]

I have a company in Seychelles.

Can I open an account with Interactive Brokers to buy F_ES of CME?

Thanks

 

[Donkers]

Is it possible to open an account with the UK branch of IB and trade and chart with them using Sierra Chart?

Also, importantly, how accurate and complete is the data, particularly for volume profiles, market delta etc?

Thanks!

 

[corbeste]

Hi Donkers,

I'm having some issues with the quality of LSE data - I am not sure if the problem is IB or the exchange itself, but many trade prices are hugely out of daily range which messes with the automatic scaling found on many software packages and market profile analysis.

An example is LLOY today, which shows a low at 20p. I have attached a screenshot to demonstrate. I can see similar results when using the IB Trader Workstation on trade prices.

Again, I am not sure where the issue lies, but pulling the chart up in IG Markets does not show the same price extreme. I am trying to use Market Profile myself and the intraday spikes distort the structure.

 

[Nym]

Hi All,
I have a question for the more experienced of you. Do IB provide low risk assets quoted in EURO?
So far i noticed that Bonds are not available, some ETF is.

Any information will be more then welcome!

 

[2wayjo]

does IB provide a tick chart functionality with corresponding volume traded below on a per second basis? similar to bloomberg GIPT function.

 

[D70]

does IB provide a tick chart functionality with corresponding volume traded below on a per second basis? similar to bloomberg GIPT function.

yes

 

[chibiks]

I am about to open a new account with Interactive Brokers. I filled the forms. I read the Customer Agreement and the margin bit. The crux was basically that Interactive Brokers can liquidate your positions at anytime without notice (fair enough). But the Agreement also stated or implied that Interactive Brokers reserves the right to change margin rules at anytime, that what is on the website is not final and that they can determine adjust and act on their new margin rules at any time without notice. So what this tells me is that margin wise, a client is at the mercy of IB and any of my positions can be liquidated at anytime based on rules I am not aware of; it also opens up room for 'shady internal operations'. I cannot do business with IB if I cannot at least get a fairly detailed picture of their margin and how the auto liquidation rule works.

Anyone know where I can get these?

 

[def]

That is a standard clause at any brokerage. In general IB charges 50% of the CME intraday and full margin overnight. You can confirm those rates on the exchange site as well. For stocks, you typically get 4:1 intraday (assuming your account is over 25K USD) and 2:1 overnight. For low cap and volatile stocks, they sometimes do not offer margin. If you have over 100K in the account you can go for portfolio margin which can offer a greater cushion. If you live on the edge, margin will be an issue at any firm with the major difference that IB doesn't make margin calls and will liquidate a portion of your account while another firm may chase you down. The former is safer for the clientele and firm on the hole but perhaps not for someone living on the edge. One major benefit though if you do trade stocks on margin are IB's margin financing rates which are several % lower than the other major brokers.

 

[A Dashing Blade]

+1 what def said . . . . remember that it's the exchange that determine minimum margins, the broker then has to pass those onto the client.

 

[chibiks]

The point I was trying to make was not clear, in clear terms:

The details of Interactive Brokers auto-liquidation algorithm is not known nor its exact triggers known, this leaves a trader at the mercy of IB as IB can determine new maintenance margin rules, act on them and liquidate positions as they see fit automatically and with as little as 10 minutes or no notice. I also searched extensively and could not see exact algorithm rules on their website or a margin page with binding maintenance margin policy to both parties. The IB Sales associate I was speaking to could not clarify these problems.

 

[D70]

The point I was trying to make was not clear, in clear terms:

The details of Interactive Brokers auto-liquidation algorithm is not known nor its exact triggers known, this leaves a trader at the mercy of IB as IB can determine new maintenance margin rules, act on them and liquidate positions as they see fit automatically and with as little as 10 minutes or no notice. I also searched extensively and could not see exact algorithm rules on their website or a margin page with binding maintenance margin policy to both parties. The IB Sales associate I was speaking to could not clarify these problems.

Struggling to see your point here.
Margin is margin. Just have enough in your account to cover your trading activities. It's not hard.

 

[chibiks]

Struggling to see your point here.
Margin is margin. Just have enough in your account to cover your trading activities. It's not hard.

Margin here refers to stocks margin and maintenance margin at that.

Say I had enough money in my account to cover my margin needs as at 9/13/2012. All things being equal (stock price remaining the same), on 9/14/2012 they change their maintenance margin rules for semiconductor stocks (eg) or mid cap stocks for example as they have the right to do. Unfortunately with this sudden change in margin policy, I no longer meet the margin requirements for open positions. Positions are liquidated. So apart from having about 10 minutes to react to margin policy changes (no good for swing traders), you have no time to save yourself.

Another example is say I had enough money in my account to cover my maintenance margin needs as at 9/13/2012; stock price remains the same. On 9/14/2012 the liquidation algorithm that nobody knows its details is changed without notice or 10 mins notice to "protect IB and its clients" and my positions are affected. The positions are liquidated.

A third example, say I buy Bank of America at $10 at 9am September 12th. At 12noon on same day, the stock moves down to $10.90. now IB can decide at 11am that Bank of America is not safe and poses a risk to IB and its clients, determine margin rules for it at that time and auto liquidate my positions with 10 minutes notice.

So how is a client supposed to know when they are about to be auto liquidated and how are they going to know which is the maintenance margin policy currently in force for equities? As the Agreement says the published margin policy on their website is not actually what is in force and can be changed anytime without notice. It seems like extortion to me.

Whenever this issue is raised on forums, there are no IB representatives to defend it, either the thread is closed or the user banned on account of being an IB competitor or otherwise disgruntled. I am just considering IB for an account but having read numerous online complaints, i wanted to get this matter clarified.

 

[Hittfeld]

I`m certainly struggling as well: If you can meet overnight requirements, where should be a problem with long stock positions (marked marginable)?

 

[chibiks]

I`m certainly struggling as well: If you can meet overnight requirements, where should be a problem with long stock positions (marked marginable)?

"overnight requirements" can be defined, redefined and applied at any time without notice - please re read my postings.

 

[SonofYoda]

Any help with my query would be much appreciated, I plan to open an IB account with rather small capital as a "trial" to see if their real platform is reliable as their demo appears to be. I plan to deposit roughly £1200 and make short term intrday trades worth £500 (so positions that are at least 200 times that due to their leverage). Does anyone see the margin being a problem? For instance if I pool half of my rather small deposit into a short position on Eur\Usd and close it within a few hours that would leave me at an unrealised P\L of lets say... - £300 ( an hour or so before I close the trade) but I Knew the position would realize itself at lets say...£200 profit (at least). Would this set of any alarms at IB, for instance would they stop out a position likes this?

 

[Splitlink]

I think that the deposit could be one. Did they say they would accept that? I think I started with a minimum of 5000 (more than 10 years ago, now) One contract at 10 pounds per point , with that amount, leaves you very little room, if you don't mind me saying so.

You are out of your depth with 1200. I was out of my depth with 5000 and I decided to go back to spreadbetting, where you should be starting at around 1 pound per point.

This is an opinion, of course. Everyone believes that he can make it where others have failed. In your case, it could be true.

Good Luck, anyway.

 

[Hittfeld]

....
I plan to deposit roughly £1200 and make short term intrday trades worth £500 (so positions that are at least 200 times that due to their leverage). Does anyone see the margin being a problem? ......

200 x leverage?? Just check with IB`s website: max leverage on most liquid pairs: 40:1!!! To remain in the game you will not survive using more than 30:1 with IB. Just my opinion.

Good luck

 

[Ghost Shadow]

TTM_Squeeze indicator/Interactive Brokers??

Is there a TTM_Squeeze indicator for interactive brokers?

Thanks

 

[zing189]

Re: Interactive Brokers & slow charting

Hi,
Is anyone aware of slow charting issues with IB?

When I click on a stock in my Watchlist, it can take anywhere from 15-20 seconds to update about 5 charts, news and market depth.

Is this normal? Any ideas on what I can do to speed this up?

Thanks,

P.S. IB said that updates should be real time. Updating two charts occurs almost real time.