Reducing costs/commissions with IB

alphahunter said:
Hello all IB users,

I have been quite active with IB for some time now, and probably spend about $500+ /day in commissions. Combination of US stocks and futures.

I am wondering for other active traders if anyone has found any useful tips for reducing commissions or costs, such as buying exchange seats, changing any other settings or discussing fees directly with customer services, etc.?

I was recently reading a post someone mentioned about buying a CME seat and IB would allow me to pay member prices, which may be interesting if anyone has had success with this.

Any other ideas or learned lessons appreciated.
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AlphaHunter;
I see you are doing high volume stuff. Me too, as far as an occasional hi volume Argentine game bird shoot.
Later on in life, you may want to do something like a big game hunter; its based on + planned with an IBKR calendar or any good calendar. Meat volume is good, on big game,not much ammo costs. Most do plenty of target shooting to get ready for the big game season.
 
KGTrader4 said:
Forgive my newbie-ness, but what am I missing, for stocks at least, why don’t you move to TD? No commissions and Thinkorswim is pretty robust
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td margin and share borrowing cost is very high, in addition to low leverage permitted.
 
alphahunter said:
Huh- I apologize, I have no idea what your metaphors are referring to. Can you be a bit less cryptic ?
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OK .
Hi volume daytrading is like hi volume gamebird shoot in Argentina. Expenses start @ $500@ day +.[Maybe more with the current price of brass,LOL:D:D]
Big game hunt /shoot is more like swing/position trading; gain more meat but less ammo/expenses.[Sorry, did not mean to be cryptic]
 
murray t turtle said:
%%
OK .
Hi volume daytrading is like hi volume gamebird shoot in Argentina. Expenses start @ $500@ day +.[Maybe more with the current price of brass,LOL:D:D]
Big game hunt /shoot is more like swing/position trading; gain more meat but less ammo/expenses.[Sorry, did not mean to be cryptic]
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you can explain your point in plain English such as: swing trading has high return thus commission is not a concern.

English is my second language, so sometime quite hard to understand metaphors
 
alphahunter said:
Hello all IB users,

I have been quite active with IB for some time now, and probably spend about $500+ /day in commissions. Combination of US stocks and futures.

I am wondering for other active traders if anyone has found any useful tips for reducing commissions or costs, such as buying exchange seats, changing any other settings or discussing fees directly with customer services, etc.?

I was recently reading a post someone mentioned about buying a CME seat and IB would allow me to pay member prices, which may be interesting if anyone has had success with this.

Any other ideas or learned lessons appreciated.
More...

IB is ok on higher priced stocks, but just terrible on lower priced, especially under $1. On options IB is unpredictable, it can be 3 times as much or 1/2 you never know until it has executed. They are also terrible on fixing bugs.

They are good on foreign stock, such a ASX, TSX, etc. On ASX think it is just $6 Aud flat even on $50,000 order. TSX not nearly as good.

How about free? Most brokers are free now except Pinks. And Fidelity is free on all sttocks even Pinks. Have moved money there from IB. I have made most of my money on sub $1 stocks, IB just terrible on them 1%.

BTW Fid gets superb fills, IB terrible almost always the worst quoted price. Sometimes on Fid I get 25% above the Bid, 75% below at Fid on mkt orders.

Cheers
 
I do up to 100ish RTs stocks and ETFs daily. Saving thousands with Fidelity since zero commish. Instant fills and outstanding support.

I like tws (I'd rate 9/10) much better than atp (6/10), but to save tens of thousands in commissions I stay with fdly. Fdly support is very smart and friendly too (10/10). IB is also a great broker, those are my 2 favorites.
 
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