IB new forex spreads

Quote from gowron8:

I'm looking at the TWS screen right before NY open.
EUR/USD is mostly 1 pip wide with the occasional .5 pip and more rare 1.5 pip. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
The spread will sometimes widen out to two pips during times of very low volume but this happened before the change as well.
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No sooner than I post on the topic ---it tightens up. Over the past few days since the change ---it was 1.5 to pips wide a whole lot more than it ever was.

It seems back to normal or even better than normal this morning. It appears there was one market maker that was sitting very wide over the last few days. Now that market maker has tightened up.

I am a half pip to one wide ---right now and half been for the European trading session.
 
I have been watching EUR/USD for an hour and the spread is 1.5 pips all the time and this is not supposed to be a non busy hour either.

I appreciate the 0.5 pip evolution as a concept, because the reality is disappointing. The market makers used it against us.

But I still think some things should be changed to make EUR/USD cash looks as interesting as EUR/USD future.

First, the leverage 50:1 is too low, it makes a 125K deal costs 2500$ margin while as EUR/USD future costs 1420$ margin during busy hours. I guess we already discussed the 1:100 margin in the past, a 1:75 margin would be ok and make the margin for this deal costs 1666$

Second, the minimum fee should be 2$ instead of 2.5$. Because the usual minimum deal is 100k on Forex not 125k as it is assumed with this fee.

Third, the spread should be kept narrow. From 1 pip to 1.5 pips is not what we were expecting on EUR/USD.
 
Quote from GeorgeSoros:

First, the leverage 50:1 is too low, it makes a 125K deal costs 2500$ margin while as EUR/USD future costs 1420$ margin during busy hours. I guess we already discussed the 1:100 margin in the past, a 1:75 margin would be ok and make the margin for this deal costs 1666$
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If min margin is important to you, at 50:1, 125K EUR/USD on IB requires about $3,050 margin right now, rather than $2,500. (125,000 x 1.22 / 50 = $3,050.) At 75:1, would be $2,033, rather than $1,666.

Also, max leverage is 30:1 for JPY and HKD.
 
BUGS :

I sent multiple BUY orders on JPY/USD (125k size each time) : execution window only show me my 1st BUY execution and not the 2 other ones.

The 2 other ones stays on TWS and do not disappear. The executed size is 125k and the order is pink.

Can you make it a priority to offer a good execution and also a proper display of PnL in the account window ?

Isn't it more important than to add hotkeys in TWS ? or to add a RSS feed in TWS ???
 
Quote from GeorgeSoros:

I have been watching EUR/USD for an hour and the spread is 1.5 pips all the time and this is not supposed to be a non busy hour either.

I appreciate the 0.5 pip evolution as a concept, because the reality is disappointing. The market makers used it against us.

But I still think some things should be changed to make EUR/USD cash looks as interesting as EUR/USD future.

First, the leverage 50:1 is too low, it makes a 125K deal costs 2500$ margin while as EUR/USD future costs 1420$ margin during busy hours. I guess we already discussed the 1:100 margin in the past, a 1:75 margin would be ok and make the margin for this deal costs 1666$

Second, the minimum fee should be 2$ instead of 2.5$. Because the usual minimum deal is 100k on Forex not 125k as it is assumed with this fee.

Third, the spread should be kept narrow. From 1 pip to 1.5 pips is not what we were expecting on EUR/USD.
More...

I have seen instances were it has tightened up to a half pip ---but most of the time of late ---the change to half pips has made things worse.
 
If you make a lot of trades let's say 300 per month wouldn't IB be rather expensive. At 5 Dollars per trade that would be 1500 dollars. If you trade 600 trades per month that would be 3000 dollars.
 
Quote from bpatrick:

If you make a lot of trades let's say 300 per month wouldn't IB be rather expensive. At 5 Dollars per trade that would be 1500 dollars. If you trade 600 trades per month that would be 3000 dollars.
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ya it would be if the sread is not less. Unfortunately alot
of the time the spread is larger than oanda plus
u pay a broker charge. If this keeps up I will go to oanda.
 
gwac,

Maybe you can give me better info than what I got when I called IB. The guy on the help desk told me that the spread never goes above 2 pips. Is that the truth or BS ?
Thanks
 
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