Anyone here migrated off IB to another broker? If so, who? Anyone do futures, Forex, stocks, options well?
Wish I did speak German, but alas, no. I am outside the US much of the year, however. Australia, unfortunately.
You could actually learn German in less than one year or marry one German lady. Think binding contract, so she can't shit you. (Don't tell me, you are living near Perth. It's just there are a few German students at the Curtin University)
I just started a new job and I can't use TWS anymore due to corporate policies and web proxy issues, so I gotta find a new broker. I was looking at Xpresstrade, which is now OptionsXpress - they seem to do everything IB does at substantially higher prices. I mostly trade options, so the price per contract at OX is $1.25 to $1.50 per contract, versus IB's $0.75 - twice as much. I sometimes trade futures options as well, which are $1.81 per contract (w/bundling) at IB, versus a looney $5.99 per contract at OX. What are they smoking? Other than OX, it's ManFinancial - I am not sure what their gig is since they do not post commission schedules on their website. If you find anywhere else where you can trade options and futures options on a browser-based platform, please let me know.
One year? I still struggled with Spanish after three. Friends tell me German is a hard language to be proficient in, although tourist German is not that hard. (I think my wife would object to a second marriage, btw.) No in Sydney -- the most overrated city in my book, if you are an American. Been here a year. It's not bad, but I laugh when I see those travel magazine proclaiming Sydney the top city in the world and such. Think St. Louis or a warm Toronto at best. NYC, London, Paris this is not. Pass the word.
Can you establish a remote logon to another network/server using Windows Desktop Connection from your work computer? If so, you can set up a desktop at home to be accessed from the outside, log on to that computer and run the software from that computer, no proxy issues. If you can't or don't want to open your network to outsiders, get a VPS for about 30-35/month and try to access it thru WDC and run the software there. Running TWS on a VPS usually gets you a better connection to their servers as well.
Does the firewall allow remote desktop, or gotomypc.com. Some companies allow the later. I used gotomypc to my home PC for year at a large corporate which blocked TWS. It also has the advantage that your trading activity wont appear in their logs.