Interactive Brokers made the middle of the pack with a 3 1/2 total, although it did receive the next to first highest rating for Costs (second to Brokerage America, which is "cheaper" because market orders are "free" - lol.) One wonders how much higher IB would be in the rankings if it offered a realtime charting package (e.g., Tradestation came second overall) or more radically, if IB just bought out Omega Research (market cap only 99M http://moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/webquote.dll?ipage=qd&Symbol=TRAD) - IB execution costs with Omega Charting...a dream... nitro
Have you demo-d the Point Direx Platnium platform? Its pretty nice, cutomizable, and offer a couple of premium charting packages. The commish structure is just as good as IB, in some scenerios better. I' m going to open a SMALL account to experiment with them, see how speedy executions are, reliability, etc. -- Z
The lack of an integrated charting platform in IB is a real shame. Even though I have an IB account, I rarely use it for this reason (and yes, I am aware of all the third party charting options-have tried them all). It is such a no brainer I wonder why they haven't done it yet? Agree that Omega/IB would be awesome.
I think the laughable results of past Barron's online brokerage reviews would convince anyone to just ignore this. As I recall the woman who wrote the review a couple of years ago basically didn't have a clue about direct trading and made all kinds of mistakes. This sort of review is fine for buy and holders who are agonizing over Schwab or E-Trade but means nothing to us. IB is a specialized product, and it is not suitable for the average Barron's reader. At times I have thought it would be nice if they had charting and analysis, but there is a lot to be said for having flexibility. You are not wedded to any feed and can use whatever charting you want. A fully integrated package like RT is nice for stocks but not needed for futures and options.
Point Direx kind of scares me. Late last year they suspended trading for weeks and did not give any traders notice. If you trade for a living that is unacceptable and for that reason I am a bit sceptical about them.
Ranking Scottrade above IB is a joke. IB scored 3.0 for its range of offerings. Give me a break.... I can trade stocks, options, futures, currencies from a single account. optionsXpress is superior to IB only for those who have a sizeable cash (i.e. IRA) account and primarily trade options spreads.
Yeah, I read all about it. I also talked to the Point Direx management about the down time they experienced. They were moving locations, and therefore moving servers, the whole process became more complex than anticipated. Since that isolated incident... there have been no service interruptions. My take on this... Point Direx suffered some in 2002 from that incident (& lost customers), now that they have operations running properly, they are trying to entice traders back with a rock-bottom commission package. Again, I will open a small experimental account, I will leave the bulk of my capital at my current broker, and run both platforms simultaneously. Under this scenario, there is very limited risk. After 6 months or so, I'll give a review of Point Direx, let you guys know what my experiences are. -- Z