International and experienced traders would find Interactive Brokers as an ideal choice and that\'s one of the reasons for which Barron\'s 2013 survey gave them the #1 place. IB has one of the lowest commissions in the industry, if you buy less than 1000 shares. So, it goes without saying that the beginners would definitely like it. Interactive Brokers provides fantastic support for international trading and offers active traders a very competitive commissions schedule for low-cost trading. The website brings quality information at the tip of your fingers and is easily navigable. On the downside, they require a minimum of $10,000 in your account for you to commence trading which is really tab high.
For more information, browse through our detailed Interactive brokers Reviews below.
What Type of Accounts you can open with Interactive Brokers?
Opening an account with Interactive Brokers takes a relatively longer time as compared to their competitors. Popular accounts are the Individual and Joint account when going for a standard cash account with Interactive Brokers.
The list of all accounts offered by Interactive Brokers is:
- Individual Account
- Joint Account
- IRA
- Trust
- Friends and Family group
- Small Business
Interactive Brokers accounts can be one of the following:
- Cash accounts that can only enter long securities positions, long option positions, and covered short option positions.
- Margin accounts which allow the purchase of securities on margin, short security positions, futures positions and naked options positions.
- Portfolio margin accounts which allow the same positions as “regular” margin accounts, but use a different method for calculating margin requirements that is typically far more favorable for the customer in the sense of allowing more leverage. A minimum account balance of $100,000 is required for portfolio margin and foreign accounts might not be eligible.
Interactive Brokers offer the following selection of investment products:
- Stocks, ETFs and Warrants
- Options
- Futures and FOPs
- US SSFs/EFPs
- Forex
- Metals
- Bonds
- CFDs
- Funds
Interactive Brokers Investment Offerings: Fee & Commissions
When it comes to pure trading, there’s none better in the industry than Interactive Brokers. You can trade investment products at the lowest prices in the industry. Interactive Brokers charges $0.005/share which is why they have earned the cheapest brokerage from Barron's. One point to keep in mind, there is a minimum number trades you have execute so that the you end up paying at least $30 per month in commissions, otherwise you have to pay $10 monthly fees. Traders in the market who want cheapest commissions should definitely think about Interactive Brokers as keeping commissions low is IB's #1 priority. IB offers two types of commissions,
- Cost Plus which decreases depending on volume, plus exchange, regulatory, and clearing fees.
- Flat Rate where charges are fixed amount per share or a set percent of trade value, and includes all IB commissions, exchange and regulatory fees.
Interactive Brokers Platform Performance and Tools
Interactive Brokers provide their users with comparatively less research, be it in-house or third party.
Interactive Brokers offers the following trading platforms:
- Workstation: It is a web-based platform and is one of the best professional trading platforms in the industry; although complex for the beginners, it offers fully customizable view with cutting edge charting and research activities, quotes.
Web Trader: IB offers a web-based trading platform called WebTrader. It is the perfect solution if you prefer an uncluttered, easy to learn trading interface but still want to use advanced trading features and tools.
- Mobile Trading: IB provides a family of mobile solutions that allow you to trade from your IB account on the go from just about any mobile device.
All platforms are included for Interactive Brokers clients at no additional cost. Most traders tend to gravitate to the Trader Workstation as it offers more features than WebTrader.
Algo trading, OptionTrader, scanners, trader chat rooms and charting are few of the tools available in the platform which serve good purpose.
How good is their Customer Service and Support?
Looking on the web there is a lot of gossip going around about the rude and obnoxious IB reps. IB offers live chat and email support. My experience with Interactive brokers was not impressive but was close to satisfactory.
Education & Training for Traders
IB has good quality informative education material on their site. The users have access to Webinars, Courses, TWS Tours, Documentation, Apps, Tools and Widgets,and Traders Glossary in the "Education" section. The newbies should definitely try their hands on the demo platform available before entering to full-fledged trading as IB's trading platform "Workstation" requires some prior trading experience. One feature that amazes me at IB and is provided by relatively less brokers is the "Traders' University" program for the users to learn. IB also conducts periodic webinars and events to show how to use the different features.
Miscellaneous information about Interactive Brokers
Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. was founded by its Chairman and CEO Thomas Peterffy. Over the last 36 years, it has grown to become one of the premier securities firms with over $4.8 billion in equity capital.
Interactive Brokers has brokerage and proprietary trading businesses on over 100 market destinations worldwide. They have a wide variety of electronically traded products including stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds, CFDs and funds worldwide.
Interactive Brokers' headquarters are in Greenwich Connecticut, and it has offices in the USA, Switzerland, Canada, Hong Kong, UK, Australia, Hungary, Russia, India, China and Estonia. IB is regulated by the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, SFA and other regulatory agencies around the world.
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05 December 2012
Interactive brokers have been ranked number 1 software based broker and the best online broker for lowest costs by Barron’s in 2005.