Lightspeed trading or Interactive brokers

Discussion in 'Retail Brokers' started by Pri, Oct 14, 2014.

  1. Shall we apply the part you quoted to a penny stock? 2500 shares at $0.10 = $250, commission cap of 0.5% of notional = $1.25. You think it would be $0.005/share or $12.50, wrong by a factor of 10.
     
    #11     Oct 21, 2014
  2. jb3398

    jb3398

    I used Market and penny stocks in the same sentence. However I used Regular stocks as my example. But the bottom line they're too high.
     
    #12     Oct 21, 2014
  3. luisHK

    luisHK

    JB, you need to check the unbundled rate if you do any volume.
    But yes IB sounds expensive for penny stocks, and for regular stocks I have a bunch of transactions costing between 50 to 100usd every month (especially lately, after I increased single stock trading) It gets better past the first 300k shares per months, and it's much better when you add liquidity. Buying 10k shares can cost you a couple of bucks when adding liquidity after the 300k treshold, including regulatory fees
    Also one has to take into account the margin fees, from memory IB is much cheaper than other retail brokers, which can add to quite a bit of money at the end of each month.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2014
    #13     Oct 22, 2014
  4. jb3398

    jb3398

    I called and spoke with 2 reps that price is fixed and non negotiable. I spoke with someone in New account sales and margin. They minimum margin requirement for 56 traders for portfolio trading account requires $100K min. and maintained at all times, for a 5:1 leverage.......
     
    #14     Oct 22, 2014
  5. luisHK

    luisHK

    I actually thought it was 110k minimum but am not sure what portfolio margin has to do with this thread. If not trading small caps, you actually get closer to 6*1 leverage overnight, more on broad base ETF. Than you start to enjoy the cheaper IB financing costs
    About the fees, have you the checked their tiered(or unbundled ) pricing, see below ?
    Today premarket for instance I bought 9000shares@19.25 for 1.81 total com , it gets cheaper after 3million shares a months btw.

    https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=commission&p=stocks2
    Also a trader on ET mentionned he could be priced on the second tier basis from the beginning of the month after showing several months statements with enough volume, hence a 450usd/month discount.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2014
    #15     Oct 22, 2014
  6. luisHK

    luisHK

    corrected a bit
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2014
    #16     Oct 22, 2014
  7. Craig66

    Craig66

    Really? I though the max was 4:1.
     
    #17     Oct 22, 2014
  8. jb3398

    jb3398

    6:1 applies to Margin accounts with a min and maintained $100k deposit only.
     
    #18     Oct 22, 2014
  9. d08

    d08

    Portfolio Margin initial minimum is 110k, maintenance minimum is 100k and that makes sense to me - they don't want people dropping below the minimum after the first losing day.

    PM depends a lot on what you're doing. Since stocks have different margin requirements, it can mean anything from 1:1 to 6:1 (plenty of stocks are non-marginable nowadays), if you do CFDs then it can be as high as 7:1 or thereabouts.
     
    #19     Oct 24, 2014
  10. def

    def Sponsor

    yes but you do have some incorrect statements. let me clarify the fee structure for IB

    1. Fixed price

    USD .005 per share with a USD 1.00 minimum and a maximum per order of 0.5% of trade value



    • Plus the applicable exchange, ECN and/or specialist fees based on execution venue.
    • In the event the calculated maximum per order is less than the minimum per order, the minimum per order will be assessed.

    2. Tiered
    This starts at .0035 per share and slides down to as low as .0005 per share with a max of 0.5% of trade value

    plus exchange, ECN fees (which could include rebates).

    Finally - most important. Note that IB does not sell order flow and the execution quality as measured by third parties is far superior to the industry average. If in doubt, I'd urge you to trade side by side and go with the firm that gives you the net lowest trading cost (which goes far beyond commission alone).
     
    #20     Oct 24, 2014