I don't really want to repeat myself all the time, but I was soooo happy when I was finally able to leave IB.
It's such a shithole. TWS is a nightmare, customer service is non-existent, mistakes happen all the time and risk management is realtime without human intervention. They liquidated my entire portfolio due to a bad tick in their risk management market data and left me 6 figures in debt until they figured out what happened one week later.
You need to understand one thing: The industry infrastructure is NOT built for automatic processing of everything. Retail traders only see 10% of the business, 90% is risk, clearing, transaction reporting, compliance.
And there is where the shit happens...and it happens all the time.
If you're really serious about trading and you're done with your experiments, do yourself a favour and do business with a small/mid sized firm that is not focused on providing free data and software, but rather on providing service.
If you need portfolio margin for complex strategies you need a guy who understands your position and rather calls you instead of just pulling the plug. IB is for CTAs and retail, not for professional traders
