I am a high volume forex day trader. I use Interactive Brokers for execution. They have a graded commission schedule whereby the first yard of business per month costs $20/million, 1-2 yards comes in at $15/million, 2-5 yards is charged at $10/million, and any trade in excess of 5 yards in a month costs $8 per million. I use a manual execution strategy with no APIs. Given the level of volume, I generate significant monthly commissions for IB (I generally reach the "cheapest" band for the commission structure by the 10-12th trading day of each month). I know that IB is a massive institution and I imagine there are significantly higher volume traders than myself but my question is: has anyone succeeded in developing a sort of customized or discounted commission schedule with IB (or any reputable US forex broker)? -- based on consistently high volume trading? I tried to get someone from IB customer service on the phone about 6 months back to discuss but it was clear I wasn't going to reach the correct IB rep. Just curious if anyone has had success with anything like this. Thanks very much.
Back when I traded with London Capital Group I was able to negotiate commissions. Doesn't help you with IB but could be an option.
Rough go for IB shares after earnings last night... IBKR US $ ↓ 34.65 -2.65 ... Maybe they need to raise commissions...
sorry but I smell a lot of BS. You are executing more than 5 billion USD notional equivalent within 10-12 business days and do not know of other solutions? And when you called, IB did not kiss your feet? Makes no sense at all. And why are you asking retail traders? IB caps size per ticket at 5 million USD equivalent (roughly speaking), meaning to trade in the size you indirectly indicated you must be trading through their institutional desk and hence have a completely different setup. I dare say that because I myself use their institutional desk where they lift the cap but where currency spreads also widen by quite a bit as function of order size. If you truly traded in such volume then you would certainly use a Prime Broker that gives you access to much higher quality liquidity in currency markets at lower commissions than the ones IB charges. Sorry but I do not buy your story because I myself specialize in currencies (cash and options) and I smell BS.
IB doesn't cut deals.peasants and kings are treated alike. that is just one of many reasons IB is successful.
there are benefits to being relatively small. in spite of some posts on ET threads you can open and close your positions without much slippage.