i'm finally willing to drop IB like a bad habit.....so lets consider the alternatives: my favored alternative thus far is MB trading if you sweep overnight funds in MB to Reich & Tang you get a 4.34% compared to IB's 3.2 or whatever for the first 50k. does MB trading offer TICK by TICK data? IB clearly doesn't which gets very annoying in fast moving markets like this one. how is MB customer service compared to IB? What other brokers are worth leaving IB for? as far as trading platform remember one can use quotetracker with just about any broker.
You are in for a major surprise if you think that you wont have issues with other on line brokers. Good luck . How long have you been trading on line ??? 2 years ?? You should keep IB open and fund another account as a backup . If you donât have enough money to do that then you should not be day trading anyway .
I use both ib and mb, I suspect the data is tick by tick at mb but dont quote me on that I could easly be wrong. mb customer service is great,they have a live chat which usually answers things in a few seconds
Hi, here is a forum where users can discuss issues the MB ceo (Ross) directly: http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=19037 Most issues seem to be related to their quote servers acting up (they do offer real tick data tho) and Pension screwing account balances and position information sometimes. Consensus seems to be that execution is good, but their data service could be better. Maybe use an external data service, and use MB quotes only as a backup. They also dont provide chart-history or charting at all, only realtime quotes. I personally only use them for FX (i had no problems with them), so cant really comment on futures. As far as customer support is concerned, i can confirm that they actually pick up the phone pretty fast if you have a problem, you can also place orders via phone if your connection dies. Commissions are negotiable, if you trade enough (atleast for FX).
Outstanding customer service at Mb however they have their share of connectivity issues also. I have an account with them , I re opened my account at Ib because of issues at MB . Many of those issues have since been corrected but there are still some problems. However I would still ecommended them as a second broker.
Chewbacca: This may not effect you if you do not hold overnight positions, but MB Trading shows the profit and loss of positions for the current or last day only. For me that is a real negative. For smaller overnight account balances, MB has the advantage on interest paid. For large overnight account balances, the interest paid by the two are about the same. For large account balances, I think IB has the edge on account security and safety. Open an account with MB Trading and try them out; But, keep the IB account funded as I think you will find you will not want to be without the IB account for serious trading.
Chewbecca, in one of your recent posts, you described how good IB still was. What happened between then and now? Is your own logic not valid anymore? Why?
Like a couple of guys said MBT has one of the most friendly customer service around, but they have issues with the data on high volume or fast-moving markets, so its good if you have a back-up broker. May be IB-MBT as broker and backup broker (or viceversa) its the best combination for online trading.
<i>"i'm finally willing to drop IB like a bad habit.....so lets consider the alternatives:"</i> If you trade futures only, Zenfire = Ninja platform cannot be surpassed imo. Very stable, extremely fast, unfiltered tick data, tick chart and volume chart bars are built to the mark instead of rounded average. Brokers who offer this combo are your risk-management part of the equation. For futures trading, there is nothing better.
where's the link austin......as far as i can tell ninja trader is a trading platform not a broker........it seems similar to quotetracker but far more advanced.......i don't see the zenfire connection at ninjatrader.com.......who is your broker austin? as far as IB - i don't think its bad as an brokerage/execution platform.........but as a trading platform, TWS sucks bigtime......if your using IB as broker and ninja trader as trading platform or another 3rd party vendor then IB is fine but TWS is pure garbage.