Interactive brokers IB review





IB.com review 2010



Interactive Brokers (IB) review 2010: low commissions, professional trading platform, $10 monthly fee and terrible customer service



Interactive Brokers (IB) Commissions and Investments Offered 2010


  • 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 account: $10,000
  • All Interactive Brokers fees

Interactive Brokers is one of the brokers with pay-per-share commissions: customer pays $0.005 per share with $1 minimum per order and no maximum. This makes all orders of less than 600 shares cheap. Orders of 2,000 shares will cost around $10. And orders of 5,000 shares will be around $25! A lot of stocks are lower now than they were in 2008 and these shares might cost dearly with IB.


Interactive Brokers Account Application

Opening an account with IB takes a while. Application forms are long and tedious. After registering, users need to verify two deposits Interactive Brokers makes into their bank account. Once verified, IB mails users a letter with codes that need to be entered before user could start trading. Minimum amount to open account is steep $10,000.


Interactive Brokers Trading Platform Review (IB TWS)


Interactive Brokers review

Interactive Brokers Trader Workstation is one of the best professional trading platforms of all online stock brokers. It lets users enter multiple orders even without money to cover all of them: if one order is executed, and the account doesn't have enough cash to cover other orders, the rest are automatically cancelled. Trader Workstation is fully customizable platform, with cutting-edge charting and research services, dynamic streaming quotes, tools for risk management, and the ability to place orders that go directly to the market.

Users could download Trader Workstation as a stand-alone application or run it from the browser (this is slower). Both versions require Java to be installed on the computer. Users could also trade through IB website, but the screens are very poorly designed. Trading through website is handy only when Trader Workstation is not available or Java is not installed on the computer.

The downside of having powerful professional trading platform is that it's hard to learn and not intuitive. It will be especially difficult to get used to for beginner investors.


InteractiveBrokers.com Website

Interactive Brokers review

Unlike the Trader Workstation trading platform, InteractiveBrokers.com website is badly designed and it is hard to navigate and find what you are looking for.


Go to Interactive Brokers Review Part 2 >>


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