Quote from OldTrader:
I don't have a bone to pick with you either. But I do disagree with your statement, and the reasoning behind it.
But first, to answer a few of your questions. I'm sure I've made some posts that question IB. But if I have, they are in the distinct minority. And there's a reason for that. I'm a happy customer, and have been for a number of years. Not that periodically something doesn't happen that pisses me off. But mostly I like the firm, and what it offers. For the most part I don't need their customer service. I'm capable of reading instructions, figuring the platform out. The few times I've had to contact customer service, they've been polite, and handled my questions. I'm self-sufficient, experienced, and therefore am probably the ideal IB customer. I read all the anti-IB threads. Most of them are initiated by people who haven't read the User Manual, and therefore, don't know what they're talking about.
What struck me about your post is the cynicism it reflected about the motives of IB. That bothers me, because I know you don't have any facts. You simply shot from the hip.
Look, I started off in the brokerage business. I've liquidated position and/or accounts due to margin calls. The idea is that you liquidate. You don't try to arrange the other side of the trade so that you make a profit on the liquidation. Come on. You got some facts regarding that, trot em out. But you and I both know you don't. All you got in this case is a general belief that IB will do anything at all to make a profit.
I would grant that IB is in business to make a profit. But I would guess, without having been privy to their internal workings, that when they get a margin call the account is simply liquidated in the most convenient fashion for IB. I don't think they're trading against you. But if the fills don't seem as good as they could have been, guess what? The chances are that when IB is liquidating, so is every other brokerage firm. So that's how it goes. In wheat the liquidation is most apt to be liquidating short positions, or spreads of the type this guy had. So all brokerage firms are liquidating at the same time, in the same direction. Bad fills should be expected. That doesn't mean IB benefitted. They just did what they had to do.
I have seen no evidence that IB is trading against a margin call. I think that you statement regarding that only reflects your cynicism, not facts. If I'm wrong, show me where I'm wrong.
OldTrader
EDIT: By the way, not many people have called me an idiot in my life. Yeah, I know what could have happened. But when I don't see any evidence at all that it did happen, then I'm unwilling to accuse a company of having done it. If that makes me an idiot in your eyes, then so be it. What I think it makes me is fair.
