Looking for a broker to replace IB, any suggestions?

Of course no firm is "immune to failure" unless eligible for government bailouts. The non-trivial question is: what FCM is sturdier *and* takes retail accounts?
 
truetype said:
As you wish. Again, tell me what FCM (1) accepts small retail accounts and (2) is sturdier than IB?
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What do you mean by "sturdy? I know of many FCM that do not have the money IB does (segregated account value), that accept small retail clients, and are "tiny" compared to IB. Why does that make them less "sturdy"?

I have been with my broker/FCM for 3 years, no problems, no hiccups. What is the deal here?
 
spurityw said:
I've been with IB for a long time, but recently they raising VIX related margin really pissed me off. The ratio for VXX went up insanely to 230%. Under such margin ratio, it's impossible for my strategy to make money.

I'm considering switch broker seriously. I usually short VIX ETF, holding short positions for some time. So the shorting interest is important to me. But as I know most brokers using fixed rate for short interest, like 6% or 8% which is much higher than IB's market shorting rates.

So I'm looking for a broke that 1 have portfolio margin, 2 using the similar shorting interest rate like IB. I went through some post in this forum. It looks that many people use IB so it does have it advantages. If you know other brokers qualify my requirements or you're representing a broker and want to introduce it to me, please give my some suggestions.
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So your problem is leverage on VIX? Why don't you trade VIX Futures CFD? Brokers like IG will give you very good leverage. And CFDs are more closely correlated to VIX than ETFs
 
shelest said:
So your problem is leverage on VIX? Why don't you trade VIX Futures CFD? Brokers like IG will give you very good leverage. And CFDs are more closely correlated to VIX than ETFs
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CFD's aren't allowed to be offered to retail investor's in the U.S.
 
Moving out of IB - after months of having a technical problem that cant fix with not receiving quotes for stocks/ETFs they billed me $62 in fictitious charges above my normal fees. Their tech support is not disputing my problem - they have my screenshots and tickets to back this up. They are calling it 'back billing' when my statements prove this is bogus. This is clearly some sort of retaliation to get rid of me - I was very patient with them on this problem and had been paying for the broken data feed for months before they hit me with with bogus back billing. They should have done the opposite - credited me back for the data feed since it was not working instead of hitting me with bogus fees.

Once my $ is out I will be going after the bogus charges to get reimbursed.
 
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If IB charge the lowest commissions in the industry, isn't this similar to an 'investment' company paying out the highest investment rates in the industry.
It's like, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
IB is not a company to fully trust imo.
 
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