Looking for a broker to replace IB, any suggestions?

truetype said:
Client, both retail and institutional sides. But IB isn't close to my largest relationship on either side.
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You're an institutional investor! Wow, just wow. Weren't you the guy telling me market makers "facilitate trades" rather than taking positions a short time ago?
 
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Not sure what you're talking about re MMs, but yes I'm a personal and institutional investor. I assume you're a person of dignity, respect and accomplishment. You seem like an intelligent and knowledgeable fellow. As the good book says: "Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults" -- good advice, whatever you think of the book itself.
 
Sig said:
Of course all funds covered by SIPC were eventually returned, didn't happen the next day though. And SIPC only covers cash and stocks, not futures or forex. And some actions like participating in IBs short lending program as a stock lender also cause you to lose some or all of your SIPC protection. I think several years after all funds were frozen PFGBest's customers were made whole or nearly so, but that was with no interest and of course the loss of any access to those funds the entire time. My real point is that brokers, and companies, can look completely healthy up to the day some underlying fraud comes to light. And the employees at IB from the CEO on down aren't the most trustworthy people in the world.
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I think you are just like me using IB Hong Kong service which has no protection from SIPC at all.
 
truetype said:
Not sure what you're talking about re MMs, but yes I'm a personal and institutional investor. I assume you're a person of dignity, respect and accomplishment. You seem like an intelligent and knowledgeable fellow. As the good book says: "Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults" -- good advice, whatever you think of the book itself.
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So this isn't an attack on you, but I think an important way to think about thinking. In general we have an idea, in the scientific method we call it a hypothesis. Something that we might justify by hypothesizing event type A can't happen because B is true. So far no problem, we have a hypothesis out there and maybe we're starting to form a belief around it. Then someone reviews your work and says, actually every single time an event A has happened, and we have numerous examples, B was true. The human response to that is to fetch around for other reasons that A can't happen, even though your original reason for forming that belief turned out to be incorrect. That's why humans lived in caves eating raw meat for millennia. The scientific method would be to say, perhaps I should reconsider my hypothesis and any underlying beliefs I've formed because of it, given that the basis for it was shown to be incorrect, instead of or at least in addition to trying to find another basis to support my original hypothesis. That's hard to do. Hard for me and you, it's even hard for scientists to do, as we see so often in the scientific community. I'm an engineer by training so biased but I think they actually do a better job at this because the bridge collapses or the phone doesn't work if they fetch around rather than revising their hypothesis. This way of thinking doesn't have to be restricted to scientists and engineers though, it has great value in all walks of life, especially trading and portfolio management. Food for thought.
 
GloriaBrown said:
I think you are just like me using IB Hong Kong service which has no protection from SIPC at all.
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I know if you are an international customer of an SIPC covered broker you are covered, the SIPC website actually specifically states that. But if IB Hong Kong is a separate entity you may be entirely correct that it isn't covered. I'd be interested in someone with more knowledge on that than me providing some input?
 
Sig said:
I know if you are an international customer of an SIPC covered broker you are covered, the SIPC website actually specifically states that. But if IB Hong Kong is a separate entity you may be entirely correct that it isn't covered. I'd be interested in someone with more knowledge on that than me providing some input?
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Have a look:
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...nts-transferred-to-newly-formed-ib-hk.296054/

IB had forced all Hong Kong customers to move to IB Hong Kong which is a local company in Hong Kong and not covered by SIPC at all. It only covers by the Hong Kong gov related fund for very little bit amount of money (around 20K US dollars) for Hong Kong market stocks and future, nothing is protected other than these 2.
 
Sig said:
So this isn't an attack on you, but I think an important way to think about thinking. In general we have an idea, in the scientific method we call it a hypothesis. Something that we might justify by hypothesizing event type A can't happen because B is true. So far no problem, we have a hypothesis out there and maybe we're starting to form a belief around it. Then someone reviews your work and says, actually every single time an event A has happened, and we have numerous examples, B was true. The human response to that is to fetch around for other reasons that A can't happen, even though your original reason for forming that belief turned out to be incorrect. That's why humans lived in caves eating raw meat for millennia. The scientific method would be to say, perhaps I should reconsider my hypothesis and any underlying beliefs I've formed because of it, given that the basis for it was shown to be incorrect, instead of or at least in addition to trying to find another basis to support my original hypothesis. That's hard to do. Hard for me and you, it's even hard for scientists to do, as we see so often in the scientific community. I'm an engineer by training so biased but I think they actually do a better job at this because the bridge collapses or the phone doesn't work if they fetch around rather than revising their hypothesis. This way of thinking doesn't have to be restricted to scientists and engineers though, it has great value in all walks of life, especially trading and portfolio management. Food for thought.
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Not sure what to make of all that, but my oft-stated 'hypothesis,' -- IB is as solid as any top-of-league table FCM that takes retail'ish accounts -- and ADM is the only real comp --is well-supported by the available evidence. No one has put forth disconfirming evidence, i.e. that IB is more fragile than peergroup FCMs.
 
IB is a large and as far as we know stable company. They aren't immune to failure because their CEO has a lot to lose, that's all.
 
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