Opinions on Interactive Brokers?

[Sig]

I traded at IB for years (until 2016 - but never stocks).

I think I can sum up my collective experiences there in one sentence, really (which is actually pretty unusual, from a mouthy chick like me): my dealing costs were undoubtedly a little lower than they would have been anywhere else, but my customer service experiences were both very variable and overall probably a little worse than they would have been anywhere else.

Completely agree, although my "customer service" veered off to hideous territory on several occasions. You'll also want to do a search here for IB and autoliquidation, variable and random margin changes...leading to autoliquidation, assessment of margin on futures debit spreads, and margin calculations that assume you can lose more than the max possible loss on a position...leading again to autoliquidation, among other known issues with them.
If you only want to trade stocks in a Reg-T account they may be a good choice. If you need to trade Mongolian milk futures in the same account that you trade AAPL, they may also be your only choice. Other than that you're almost universally better off with someone like Robert if you're a mid-size trader or nearly any other broker if you're a smaller trader.

Sincerely,

Another unhappy (former) IB customer

 

[SoesWasBetter]

It's true. The transaction fees are often much more than the commissions, so their claim of $1.00 per 200 shares is a lie.
T

huh? Give an example of what you're talking about

 

[d08]

huh? Give an example of what you're talking about

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=commission&p=stocks2

So that's $23 on a million USD trade for a sell order. Quite a lot of money when trading low volatility ETFs. This is entirely separate from the commissions, btw. Many years ago this was a part of commissions, not separate - they sneaked it in.

 

[Robert Morse]

If you are referring to the SEC section 31 fee, no broker I know of would cover that. It is a pass through of a regulatory fee. https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-206.html

 

[Sig]

If you are referring to the SEC section 31 fee, no broker I know of would cover that. It is a pass through of a regulatory fee. https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-206.html

Bob,
I know my Schwab IRA just charges the $4.95 commission and nothing else when I do a stock transaction. Which makes the below chart from Interactive Brokers highly deceptive, given that the Schwab fee is a total of $4.95, full stop, and the Interactive Brokers fee is $1 plus a bunch of other stuff that could easily end up being far higher than everyone that they're showing as more expensive. You guys are fairly upfront about that, IB not so much. (I know you have no love lost for IB either, you're so fair about it though!)

 

[Robert Morse]

Bob,
I know my Schwab IRA just charges the $4.95 commission and nothing else when I do a stock transaction. Which makes the below chart from Interactive Brokers highly deceptive, given that the Schwab fee is a total of $4.95, full stop, and the Interactive Brokers fee is $1 plus a bunch of other stuff that could easily end up being far higher than everyone that they're showing as more expensive. (I know you have no love lost for IB either, you're so fair about it though!)

To compete with those on that list we offer Web Trader, as I discussed in this thread. BTW, we did not just lower our fees to that level like everyone else on that list. We have been at that level for quite some time.

Equities: $4.50/Trade
Options: $0.60/option, minimum commission of $4.50

Bob

 

[SoesWasBetter]

You're saying schwab doesnt charge the SEC sales fee?

 

[Robert Morse]

You're saying schwab doesnt charge the SEC sales fee?

They Do http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/pricing_services/fees_minimums

8. Exchange Process Fee—This is a fee Schwab charges to offset fees imposed on us by national securities and self-regulatory organizations or by U.S. option exchanges.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) assesses transaction fees on national securities exchanges and self-regulatory organizations based on the aggregate dollar amount of sales of certain securities. The SEC recalculates the amount of this fee periodically—at least once per year but sometimes more often. National securities exchanges and self-regulatory organizations offset the transaction fees by charging their member broker-dealers such as Schwab, and we, in turn, offset this fee by charging you an Exchange Process Fee for covered sell transactions. U.S. option exchanges charge Schwab and other broker-dealers per-contract fees for purchases and sales of exchange-listed options. The exchanges may charge these fees even on transactions executed on other exchanges, which can result in multiple fees being imposed on Schwab for a single transaction. Schwab offsets these fees by charging you a single Exchange Process Fee for each covered transaction. Any Exchange Process Fee that appears on your trade confirmation for a sale of an exchange-listed option will combine the offsets for the fees charged both by the U.S. option exchanges and by the national securities and self-regulatory organizations.

 

[SoesWasBetter]

Of course they do. More fake news on the internet

Getting worse not better as the quality of postings everywhere deteriorates

 

[ET180]

If you're trading with breadth (large number of small positions in stocks) then IB is good with their commission structure. But if you are doing concentrated large bets (eg. your whole account value into one stock at a time) then your commission will be significantly higher than 'commission per trade' brokers such as TD, Fidelity, Schwab, etc.

I don't think that's true. Maybe at some high number of shares (at which point execution / fill quality will matter more), but I doubt for anything less than a couple thousand shares. If you do tiered IB pricing and place a limit order a few cents less than the ask, for 100 shares of SPY, the commission will only be around 15 - 30 cents. With the other brokers you mentioned, the trade would cost around $5. So even if you only do one round-trip trade per month to cover the $10 activity fee, you're better off with IB when considering commission alone.