Interactive Brokers vs Tradestation
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- Stocks and ETFs Flat-Rate Plan: 1 to 9 trades/month - $9.99/trade; 10 to 29 trades/month - $7.99/trade; 30 or more trades/month - $6.99/trade
- Stocks and ETFs Per-Share Plan: first 500 shares $0.01 per share, $0.006 per share thereafter, $1 minimum per trade
- Options: $1 per contract with no ticket charge and no minimum
- Futures: 25¢ - $1.20 per side, per contract + exchange, regulatory & overnight fees
- Mutual funds: $14.95
- Bonds: $14.95 plus $5 per bond
- T-Bills: equities - $50, futures - $10
- OTCBB: $9.99 (100,000 share position maximum)
- Pink Sheet Stocks: $9.99 (100,000 share position maximum)
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, futures, T-Bills, OTCBB, Pink Sheet Stocks, Forex, ETFs
- Minimum to open Tradestation account: $5,000 for non-daytraders and $30,000 for daytraders
- All Tradestation fees
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- Stocks and ETFs: $0.005 per share with $1 minimum per trade for SMART routed orders
- Options: $0.70 per contract plus exchange fees
- Mutual funds: $14.95 per transaction
- Investment products: stocks, options, ETFs, bonds, futures, currency transactions
- Minimum to open Interactive Brokers account: $10,000 for non-IRA account, $5,000 for IRA account
- All Interactive Brokers fees
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- Great trading platform
- Trading modeling functionality
- Lots of investment products to trade
- Active online community
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Low stock commissions for orders with 800 shares or less
- Professional trading platform
- Great margin rates
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- High stock and ETF commissions
- Direct routing up to 5000 shares is no additional charge, $.005 per share thereafter
- $99.95 fee to use TradeStation Platform if not traded at least 5,000 shares in previous month
- Lots of fees for market data
- $35 annual IRA fee
- Steep learning curve: trading platform is too complicated for beginner investors
- Minimum amount to open account is $5,000 for non-daytraders and $30,000 for daytraders
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- $10,000 minimum to open most accounts
- $30/month minimum commission requirement to avoid $10/month fee ($20/month fee if account balance less than $2,000)
- $10/month for IB market data feed (waived if trade commissions are more than $30/month)
- $7.50 quarterly fee on IRA accounts ($30 per year)
- Fees on modified or canceled orders
- Trader Workstation is designed for professional traders, it is not intuitive; difficult to learn
- Expensive to make trades with over 1,500 shares
- A lot of complains about snobby customer service (experienced it ourselves)
- $1.20 fee to modify or cancel an option order
- Merciless margin tightening and margin calls - IB doesn't care if their customers get completely wiped out
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Interactive Brokers versus Tradestation: Comparison Summary
Interactive Brokers (Interactive Brokers Review) and
Tradestation (Tradestation Review) are two
are very similar brokerage companies with the same customer base: very active traders and day-traders.
Tradestation has somewhat high flat-rate stock commissions. But both firms offer pay-per-share trading and this
is where IB stands out. Its pay-per-share rate is half of what Tradestation charges: 0.005 cents/share against
Tradestation's 0.01 cents/share. Minimum per trade at both firms is $1. Obviously, it means that all orders with
Interactive Brokers offers of up to 500 shares will be very cheap. But, at the same time, all orders of over
2,000 shares will be very expensive. Tradestation is twice as expensive as IB.
We have to repeat: both companies are suited only for very active traders:
IB has monthly $10 fee ($20 per month for accounts with less than $2,000) if client makes than $30 in commissions per month and Tradestation charges
$100 monthly fee to use its trading platform if client did not traded at least 5,000 shares in previous month.
IB is known for very obnoxious customer service and the firm will liquidate your positions with little warning
and often at the worst possible time, and potentially wiping you out completely. They just don't care.
For a day-trader IB is the better choice of the two. For everybody else we would recommend taking a look
at our best stock brokers list.
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