Quote from Ditch:
As far as futures are concerned, IB has already lost it's edge. Even the low volume trader can get a deal of $4.80/RT or lower elsewhere PLUS you get the advantage of the latest front-end technology.
Quote from H2O:
Ditch, if you're referring to J-Trader, than my advice to you is to look into J-Trader before you start out. I traded using J-Trader a while ago, and unless they fixed some major bugs, I will not use it again.
Bugs - "Disapearing trades" , "Very slow response to cancelling orders" , "execution of orders that were cancelled (At least I thought they were according to J-Trader)"
Again, if they fixed / improved the platform it could be very good now, but as I remember it I wouldn't use it.
Plus you have to remember IB offers futures traders a SIPC insured acct (Universal)
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
Let's not be so quick to abandon IB. For those who just got started, I can promise you that you'd still be paying $15/rt for futures without IB. And I can remember not too long ago when $19.95 a ticket was going retail direct access rate, plus ecn's of course. IB has been the best friend we've ever had.
Now if only they had some sort of deal to integrate top level charting and Lev II. RealTick is too expensive, QCharts can get slow, ESig is funky and the others are lacking one way or another.