IB Lowers Futures Commissions

[Cdntrader]

Quote from Steve_IB:

IB has lowered its unbundled futures commissions across the board. There are deductions of up to 20 cents per side in US futures, and big reductions in European and Hong Kong futures.

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/e...ssionFutures-FOPs.php?ib_entity=llc#unbundled

So the bundled rate for ES/NQ is $4.80.

And the unbundled rate @ 300 contracts or less per month is $4.68?

Seems like unbundled is a no brainer. What am I missing?

 

[Steve_IB]

Quote from Cdntrader:

So the bundled rate for ES/NQ is $4.80.

And the unbundled rate @ 300 contracts or less per month is $4.68?

Seems like unbundled is a no brainer. What am I missing?

If you are daytrading then yes. If you are holding positions then you will need to take the carrying fees into account.

 

[u130747]

Just switched to unbundled.


Bert

 

[joeyata1]

ib's rates still 25% more than amny other places for guys doing 400 or more r/t's a month

 

[vikana]

This is good news.

Please consider lowing the stock commissions as well. Ideally .5c/share independent of volume. That would again make IB competitive with stock commissions.

 

[jonnysharp]

i would love to see margins lowered more than commissions. i mean if you were day trading the DAX risking say 5pts at a time(hypothetically) that would be $150USD risk for 1 contract, and for that in the euro session i would need $8,500USD of margin to put up? the DAX has daily volatility of around $1800USD. could it be lowered a bit?

 

[Steve_IB]

Quote from jonnysharp:

i would love to see margins lowered more than commissions. i mean if you were day trading the DAX risking say 5pts at a time(hypothetically) that would be $150USD risk for 1 contract, and for that in the euro session i would need $8,500USD of margin to put up? the DAX has daily volatility of around $1800USD. could it be lowered a bit?

I don't think this is going to happen. In light of recent events, lowering our risk controls would probably not be the best advertisement.

 

[afedoro]

Congrats IB on lowering commissions!

In terms of margin rates, it is true that they are high at IB compared to other active trading brokers but on the other hand, I don't think that is necessarily bad. When I see some brokers offering $500 margin rates on e-mini's, it worries me for some of their clients because if someone is actually using that kind of leverage to its full extent, their account is probably very much at risk.

In a way, by requiring higher margin amounts, a broker also looks out for their customers (even if that's not necessarily the original intent for higher rates).

Anyway, just my 2 cents...

PS: Steve, about the reset issue, I'm not sure how it works underneath but have you considered allowing clients to specifically switch servers or set some flag when starting to trade the asian session to prevent this from happening? Not sure if that's technically possible though, depending on the requirements for the reset.

 

[ozzy]

Can we lower the futures rates a little more please. I like IB but I'll have to move to another broker in the US if I want to keep costs down.

Also is it possible to cut deals with IB depending on the amount of volume you do?

Thanks.

 

[TGregg]

Is this correct? From what I can tell, if a trader trades ES and never carries a position (and thus never incurs the 10 cent carry charge), then he should trade unbundled regardless of how many contracts he trades:

CME Fees: 1.16 (Exchange fee 1.14 and Reg Fee .02)
IB: 1.20
Execution fee .90 (<=300 contracts)
Clearing fee .30 (<=1k contracts)

That's 2.36 per side. I know, it's a whopping 8 cents/round trip saving. But did I do this right?