Hello All, I'm new to TWS having come from Trading 212 which is a very simple platform. On Trading 212 you can switch totally into a CFD platform, so any instrument you bring up to trade on is CFD anyway, but you can trade much lower monetary values than if you trade the real share price etc. IB doesn't seem to work that way, the minimum share quantity appears to be 100 shares, I'm starting out on the platform with a relatively small account so 100 shares is going to be too high value in most cases. If I trade using a CFD version, that also appears to be 100 shares minimum and the share price is the same, so no cheaper to buy, so what's the advantage for traders wanting to start with smaller value trades? Have I got this right or have I missed something?
Hey Paul, does that happens - with leverage, in 212 ? If so, then the more leverage trader has, the faster he blows out. Fast profits for the platfrom. Disclaimer : their youtube channel is worth while
Yeah I know that can happen with the leverage, but on 212 if you buy shares on CFD you don't have to buy a whole share, you can buy parts of a share so it makes it easier to trade with a smaller account. CFD on IB seems to still be 100 shares minimum at the full price so it's no cheaper than buying 100 shares minimum on the normal stocks? What is the point of CFD on IB? If it's no cheaper to buy the stock I don't see the advantage?
https://ibkr.info/fr/node/1912 Sure your just missing something on the software. I can pretty much guarantee that IB allows odd lots (less then 100 shares). Never seen a brokerage that doesn’t. Also CFD’s I thought we’re leveraged products. That’s the benefit. Small accounts want lots of leverage, but it usually fails quickly. Leverage works both ways.
I haven't checked TWS specifically for CFDs, but it is possible to define default presets per instrument category (e.g. stock options, futures). One of the items you can preset is the default order size. More here: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=19017
Yep you guys are right, you can override the share amount you can buy, it's a little confusing because when you click on the amount of shares, it brings up a drop down box with 100, 200, 300 shares etc, but in fact you can manually enter just 1 share. CFD works slightly differently on IB in that you can't buy lower amount of shares like you can in 212 but there is leverage obviously on what you do buy. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!