I chose hotspot because I tested their demo and was very impressed with the low spreads and good volatility. However, I found out that the demo account often has smaller spreads than the live account for the exotics and crosses. They still seem better than my previous brokers (MIG, Oanda, and the lousy IBFX), but I've heard a lot of good things about IB and wanted to compare between the two of them to see which is better on a live account.
Interactive Brokers - experiences and opinions
I know I'm a noob, but I thought I'd add my $0.02 here.
My mentor had me take out an account with IB because it suits the way he trades. He uses Booktrader to enter his trades, which I haven't seen mentioned in this thread yet.
Re: Commissions and spreads, if you get filled at limit you won't pay any spread, just the commission. It's hard to find any mention of this on the IB site, but every time I check my trade window it seems to be the case... so it can be very economical trading with them. Stop orders or market orders of course cost you spread + commission.
Charting: Yeah the charts suck and they're getting worse. But I just tried the quotetracker workaround and had it working in about 5 minutes, so no problems there.
Minimum orders:
GBP/*** - $13000
EUR/*** - $18000
AUD/*** - $30000
USD/*** - $25000
Position sizes - anything above those minimum orders, down to the last dollar. So can order $19783 on EUR/USD no problems, which means you can get into super tight money management. As far as I know Oanda are the only other broker doing this? But they'd only be suitable if you had a really small account.
Hope that clears up some stuff.
When you set a buy limit at 1.5800, your order will only be filled when ask price reaches 1.5800. But at the very instant your order is filled, the bid price could be less than 1.5800 depending on the spread at that instant. So spread is always there except for rare instances when it comes to zero which of course can occur with any type of order, market or limit.
You guys have made me doubt myself!
So I thought I'd ask customer service:
There you have it gents.
- #171
- Edited Aug 1, 2008 2:13am Jul 31, 2008 9:34pm | Edited Aug 1, 2008 2:13am
- | Joined May 2008 | Status: Trader | 762 Posts
IB has two forex routing systems, Ideal Pro for amounts over $25,000 USD at 50:1 margin, and Ideal for lesser amounts. Micro lot traders should not trade at IB, and generally IB is low cost for trading but has terrible customer service, so do not use them unless you take screen shots of every trader and don't mind fighting with them.
IB can take you trade and place you 100 pips away (in the hole - negative against you), and claim that it is within their 1% fair trade policy, and not make any adjustments. They messed me up several times on the USD/JPY, which requires a minimum order that equates to $250 per each pip, and they put me through on Ideal - not Ideal Pro, and at prices between 50-100 pips away from a slow Monday morning market - and they would not budge on cancelling the trade. I had to trade my way out of an instant $16,000 defecit caused by their stupid policy and poor service.
I get the impression that IB 'customer service' is like an insurance claims department, they find every excuse not to pay you, including some unscrupulous methods. The reps must be on commission for a cut of how much they screw trader out of money. Numerous times things went wrong, and every one of those times, without exception, it was always in IBs advantage. The say they are an ECN, but I think they treat Ideal as a free for all like a pirates cove - take what they can - give nothing back.
I still have my IB account, but recently found a better broker. Forex is just a minor sideline to IB, and they have a long way to go with their TWS Forex trade platform and awful charting to get up to the level I like.
I am also looking into using IB.IB claims that they actually put all 25,000 USD+ orders through IdealPro even if you specifiy IDEAL. I wonder what went wrong. Looks like you put through an 2.5 mill order (at 250USD/pip), or? Did you use a market order? I can't see how this kind of slippage could happen with a limit order...
Correct me if I'm wrong. What you described certainly does not speak well for IB.
- #176
- Aug 1, 2008 3:59pm Aug 1, 2008 3:59pm
- Joined Aug 2007 | Status: History & Economic Cycles | 204 Posts
Yes, FXoffshore please substantiate those claims!
If you are from IB, I don't think you want to open this door, and expose the awful treatment they give to FX traders.
I did not say I forced 2.5M onto Ideal, those are not my words or what I meant. The process is automated by IB, anyone with an IB account would understand that order routing is automated based on their minimum trade. Where was it stated that Ideal Pro is $2.50/pip on Yen trades?
As far as the $250/pip on USD/JPY as the minimum Ideal Pro, well, it is a fact you can determine yourself - it is not up to me to prove IB is not friendly to Forex traders or their Yen minimum is about 100 too high. But you can try it yourself, try placing a USD/JPY order, if it involves less than $25,000 USD it goes to Ideal, and at $25k goes thru Ideal Pro - this is automatic, at their level, there is no button I can choose to over-ride their system. At $25,000 you would be $2.50/pip on GBP/USD or USD/CAD roughly, but IB policy minimum on Yen trades is skewed, it is 100x higher!! Go ahead, place a $25,000 USD/JPY trade, and you are looking at $250 per pip, so 10 pips is $2500. While that under my 1% guideline, it prevents taking multiple small 'step' or 'scout' orders as I call them.
You say if the order is less than $25000, it goes to ideal and if more it goes to ideal pro and we can't over ride this. Well thats what we all have been saying as well. Thats their minimum order size for trades and there is no need to over ride that. In fact if you by mistake enter a bigger order in Ideal it still goes to Ideal pro which is a good protection for traders. How is this unfriendly to traders? With me so far...?Second you say that $25,000 order on USDJPY is $250 per pip, well that is impossible. Its going to be $2.5 per pip for every broker in the world and every exchange that it is traded on, regardless of the leverage you are using. How can you buy a $50,000 Mercedes for 500 bucks? Like knightsy pointed out above, you are probably looking at p/l figure in yens which may equate to approx 250 yens per pip (and not dollars), and this may explain your confusion.
I am looking forward for you to post some screen shots or proofs so we can get some meaningful information and make some sense out of your arguments.