I left Interactive Brokers to get the better per-share pricing at CyberTrader. The account approval/funding process took several days longer than they said it would. The software user interface made it impossible to see if my limit orders were still the best bid. Futures contracts cannot be held overnight making it hard to hedge positions. The P&L calculator was very wrong when I was losing money and when stocks hadn't begun trading yet. Then I discovered another limitation that made it impossible for me to trade my best strategy. Closing my accounts was very frustrating. It took several days and 20 phone calls. They committed two acts of incompetence, delayed every step, and ended up charging me TWICE the fees the website indicates! Getting into and out of CyberTrader locked up my money for two weeks, and I feel they were misleading with the fee descriptions posted on their website. I am licking my wounds, just happy to have my money back in my possession.
You opened acct with CyberTrader, a Schwab company ? What were you thinking ? Didn't your mom teach you to deal with people of your level only ?? If you deposited a few million, I am sure CyberTrader would have completed things a little faster. Moral: If you aren't wealthy, dont deal with wealthy (Fortune 1000) companies. Come on people, "Buy Low - Sell High" applies in real life too. Buy things (brokerage service) frow Low companies and sell your product to High companies.
I disagree. Any company for which competence in simple and common transactions, such as opening and closing accounts and fund transfers, depends on the amount of money involved, is seriously warped, and is likely to end up being bad for you regardless of your account size. In fact, I think I like the idea of opening an account with a small (but reasonable) balance with a firm first, and seeing how they respond, before sticking a bunch of money and transactions there. All that aside, I'll mention that valuation of positions outside normal market hours is a difficult task, and one that is handled differently (for better or worse) by every firm. If your platform forces these irrational unrealized P&Ls to affect your ability to trade, you've got problems.
It's been a few years -- and I went to IB in the end -- but I used the Schwab day trader system (cyberlite). I found it and the customer service to be quite good. I had no problems with fund withdrawls -- although they did it by fax and not internet. While I don't use them now I would use them in the future if the commissions,api, product depth, and universal account flexibility matched up.
I had a similar frustrating experience with them once... they are all talk and no walk! Don't open your primary account with them! Ice
I disagree with your disagreement. If you deposit $10mil with Schwab, I am sure they will try to make you happy. Whether they succeed in making you happy , ie, doing things right is a different matter. Fortune 1000 companies outsourced their brains out and its all a big publicity stunt to impress naive people. I dealt with and witnessed how things go in this area for over a decade. Unfortunately, it takes another 25yrs to see a big change in how big companies work. (Average age of corp executives for big companies: 60yrs. So, basically wait till they die) Small companies such as Firsttrade depend on happy customers for their survival. Big companies depend on big boys (institutional investors who get paid to blow up invidivual investors' money)
Well, maybe I was too harsh on CyberTrader. I sent them an email detailing my complaints, and they ended up mailing me a check refunding a portion of the fees I paid. I never expected that to happen.
can't hold futures overnight ? what a joke and a ripoff, daytrade your account to death that's what they want, and I am not even talking about their platform fee it will be waived but only if you make hundreds of trades /month it's pretty simple any company that does a lot of advertising saying they have all the bells and whistles you "can't afford not to have in this market " is suspicious. Often times I see their ads and just by the sound of it I can tell if these guys are good for me or not. In the case of Cybertrader their ads have always been ridiculous. And remember the ads featuring Charles Schwab himself ! did you trust what he said? Do you ever hear from OANDA or IB? not very often NO you hear from FXCM and GFT Forex! Do you hear from Quote.com or Quotetracker? no you hear from esIGNAL and Tradestation that you are told you can't afford not to have