New IB policy for pro accts...

K

ktm

I found out today...as usual the hard way...that IB now forces professional subscribers to subscribe to every exchange that you wish to trade on. Until today, I was able to subscribe to the NASD only, yet trade NYSE or AMEX issues - without receiving quotes. I was told in January that the minimal subscription was NASD only.

I had no problem not receiving quotes as I get them elsewhere. Now, if you are a pro subscriber and wish to trade anything on the NYSE/AMEX (not routed to an ECN), then you are forced to subscribe to all of them - $200 a month - for nothing. No quotes - no exchange trading.

Once again, I have to find this out by having a trade get rejected then having to call IB to hear the new policy. This is typical now. Sad, very sad indeed.
 
I'm listed as professional on one of my accounts and haven't been able to trade NYSE or AMEX either, without forking over the $120-$200 per month for the privilege. I'm seriously thinking about moving to Tradestation or somewhere else if they don't start improving things.:(
 
Do you have to pay Pro exchange fees to each quote vendor. I thought if you were paying the fee to the NYSE that it covered multiple vendors.
 
I'm not sure.

I only trade the pro account thru IB.

They also made some other changes that helped separate me from a bit more of my money. Up until the other day, my pro account and my personal account were linked for quote fees since I was the trader for both.

Yesterday I get hit with a $10 "inactivity fee" for my personal account. Now I remember seeing under subscriptions just Monday that my pro account and personal account were linked. So I log back in this morning and the pro acct linkage is gone and there's a script at the bottom that reads "professional and non-professional accounts may not be linked".

Thanks for telling me after the fact. IB is getting very arrogant. I am becoming much less loyal in a hurry.
 
What needs to be done is a decoupling of the execution and the corresponding quotes. There is no reason they should be 'linked ' anymore especially with all these fees. Most people probably subscribe to other quote feeds with realtime charting so IB quote feed is not necessary for trading.

Any possibility this can be done in TWS soon?
 
IB's quotes have been poor today.
Maybe from all its new customers.

If you open an account and can't even do $10 worth
of trades a month, you should just close the account
and find something else to do with the money.
 
So far IB has let me keep nonprofessional status for my LLC, but charging me $20 for the NASD quotes. This way I have been able to trade NYSE so far. We'll see what happens tommorow. I have another IB account setup as an individual account but using my TIN for the LLC for the 1099. I'm just won't know until the end of the year if IB will send the 1099 with that number (I sent a email to customer service with that question - no response).
 
The quotes and the trading ability were NOT linked until today. That's my problem. It's not just that they do these things, but the way you have to find out is by getting a "transaction denied" message while you are attempting to place a trade.

Of course, tech support says "oh no, it's always been that way." I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the programmers also don't tell the people on the phones what they are doing or when they make changes either.

This is a relatively small corporate account that now has to pay over $2400 per year just to be allowed to trade on exchanges. I understand quote dissemination, but IB is not allowing routing to the damn exchange. Does anyone know if it is NYSE policy to not allow trading on it's exchange by a "professional" - again a "non-individual" is a professional - unless that professional pays $128 per month in exchange fees?

Are these exchange fees for dissemination of quotes or for the privelege to trade on the exchange?
 
Originally posted by drbtk
So far IB has let me keep nonprofessional status for my LLC, but charging me $20 for the NASD quotes. This way I have been able to trade NYSE so far. We'll see what happens tomorrow. I have another IB account setup as an individual account but using my TIN for the LLC for the 1099. I'm just won't know until the end of the year if IB will send the 1099 with that number (I sent a email to customer service with that question - no response).
More...

How did you get them to let you keep a nonprofessional status with an LLC? I have an LLC and am paying Pro rate for NASD so far only, and can't trade NYSE or AMEX. Did you talk to them personally and they let you do it?

I reread your post. You use the personal account with the TIN of the LLC to get around the problem?
 
I wrote IB mgmt and the SEC. I question whether they can legally prevent a customer from trading on the exchange without paying quote fees. I have never seen anything from the NYSE or AMEX that says anything of the sort. It was always based on paying for quotes. If IB is allowed this discretion, they need to clearly state on the website that professional subscribers will not be permitted to trade on the exchanges unless they pay for quotes.

IB doesn't make a dime on these fees, so why in the hell are they putting us through this?
 
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