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IB or MB Trading?
- Thread starter bandit77
- Start date
No problem Bandit. BTW, another neat MB trick is no addition cost to place trades over the phone ... in case your connection goes down or the like. They even link checking writing and a debit card to your account upon request and roll all available $$$ (not just 10k+) into a 3% sweep account which for me, combined with the free data feed, more than justifies the extra buck per emini RT.
YMMV. Frank
YMMV. Frank
looks like they don't offer option trading? which is a deal breaker because half my trades are options. too bad, looked promising.
Quote from ArtfulDodger:
Your welcome. And forgot to mention, if you are going to trade just stocks, especially NASDAQ stocks, you may want to check Genesis Securities. They have decent rates I think, and their platfor Laser is way better for scalping, etc than IB's TWS in my opinion.
If you are going to trade eminis or the like there are also many decent futures focused firms out there, although both IB and MB are good as well.
Noting that bigmrfranks first post was this month and was asking about possible futures brokers one might question how much experience he has with brokers. I don't know about the artful dodger.
FWIW, if you don't need handholding (maybe bmf doesn't but I wonder from checking his earlier posts - I cant actually tell but make your own decision) I suspect that IB's US Customer phone service (HK and Europe are actually good) isn't a good enough reason to avoid them.
If it was you wouldn't find so many IB customers here and at T2W.
Also, FWIW, my own experience (I've had maybe 10 brokers including 4 supporting futures) has been that, for someone who knows what they're doing IB can be an excellent choice.
If you've got tools that you want to use with MB that you cant emulate with IB though, then you'll probably need to go down that path.
Personally I use Sierrachart and ZerolineTrader with IB. ButtonTrader and NinjaTrader may give you the level of integration you are looking for.
Best of luck.
FWIW, if you don't need handholding (maybe bmf doesn't but I wonder from checking his earlier posts - I cant actually tell but make your own decision) I suspect that IB's US Customer phone service (HK and Europe are actually good) isn't a good enough reason to avoid them.
If it was you wouldn't find so many IB customers here and at T2W.
Also, FWIW, my own experience (I've had maybe 10 brokers including 4 supporting futures) has been that, for someone who knows what they're doing IB can be an excellent choice.
If you've got tools that you want to use with MB that you cant emulate with IB though, then you'll probably need to go down that path.
Personally I use Sierrachart and ZerolineTrader with IB. ButtonTrader and NinjaTrader may give you the level of integration you are looking for.
Best of luck.
tough choice indeed. I'm weighing the commission savings at IB. I probably trade 700-1000 option contracts a month. which would be a savings of $175 to $250 difference in commission savings a month at IB vs MB trading. That would buy pretty much any data feed/platform out there.
I'm leaning toward IB, with MB second.
I'm leaning toward IB, with MB second.
Quote from kiwi_trader:
Noting that bigmrfranks first post was this month and was asking about possible futures brokers one might question how much experience he has with brokers. I don't know about the artful dodger.
FWIW, if you don't need handholding (maybe bmf doesn't but I wonder from checking his earlier posts - I cant actually tell but make your own decision) I suspect that IB's US Customer phone service (HK and Europe are actually good) isn't a good enough reason to avoid them.
If it was you wouldn't find so many IB customers here and at T2W.
Also, FWIW, my own experience (I've had maybe 10 brokers including 4 supporting futures) has been that, for someone who knows what they're doing IB can be an excellent choice.
If you've got tools that you want to use with MB that you cant emulate with IB though, then you'll probably need to go down that path.
Personally I use Sierrachart and ZerolineTrader with IB. ButtonTrader and NinjaTrader may give you the level of integration you are looking for.
Best of luck.
Another item you might want to check on is the financial position of the firm...
One way to do this is find out the average number of trades per day...take their lower rates...as approximately 7% of their accounts will be doing the majority of their business...
This will give you an idea of what the cash flow is to run the firm...and you will probably want to adjust the rate to IBs rate...because IB is definitely the price leader...
Things can get pretty dicey in 2006-2007.....
One way to do this is find out the average number of trades per day...take their lower rates...as approximately 7% of their accounts will be doing the majority of their business...
This will give you an idea of what the cash flow is to run the firm...and you will probably want to adjust the rate to IBs rate...because IB is definitely the price leader...
Things can get pretty dicey in 2006-2007.....
Hopefully IB will be around for the next year eh? I've opened an account at IB and put in an initial deposit. I'll test drive them for a bit. if it's good, I'll put in the rest of my money. if not, I'll open an account with MB and try them out
Quote from libertad:
Another item you might want to check on is the financial position of the firm...
One way to do this is find out the average number of trades per day...take their lower rates...as approximately 7% of their accounts will be doing the majority of their business...
This will give you an idea of what the cash flow is to run the firm...and you will probably want to adjust the rate to IBs rate...because IB is definitely the price leader...
Things can get pretty dicey in 2006-2007.....