Nice. Do you happen to day trade or happen to short a little bit? I'm wondering how there shorting is but I think as of now, I might be leaning towards IB using their tiered pricing. Stick with them for at least 6 months and venture out if I do not like where I'm at then. Not 100% positive yet.
I trade stock options mostly, directional swing trades. Shorting is easy with options because you can buy call options when you think a stock is going up, buy put options when you think it is going down. Your risk is limited to the cost of the premium you paid for the option. That is on a worst case scenario. If you paid $300, you can only lose $300. Of course, you can get out sooner when the value of the premium goes down to $150 because your trade did not work out.
Depends on the commission plan you are on through IB. If you are using the fixed, it can be more expensive with share sizes of 1000+. This is because you can get TOS to lower their commission to 3-4$. For IB, 1000*0.005 = 5$. If you used their tier option, I heard its cheaper as you can get rebates for adding liquidity. I'm not super familiar with this but I am probably going to go with the tier option through IB when I start day trading. I just have to read and understand it more thoroughly. Nice. At this moment of time, I'm primarily focusing on trading stocks as I am no where near ready for options or futures. When I get good at trading stocks, I'll eventually step into the world of options. I heard they have a better risk/reward but it can be quite tricky. I think I'm leaning towards IB but I have to pay $150 for their DAS Trader. This is due to getting Level 2 data as well as great selection of shorts.
Out in left field and people may not talk about...Exit fees. Something goes south and you need to close your account. What are the exit fees for each broker? Looking at all fees...Exit, money/wire transfer, auto closing positions, ect...