Does IB allow us to trade COMEX gold and silver? If I want to day trade silver, does CBOT silver have sufficient liquidity?
Yes. On E-CBOT ZI(Silver) ZG(Gold) Substitute Y for Z for the minis. As far as daytrading silver, it's volume is relatively thin which would indicate to me that you'd have no trouble entering but slippage galour exiting a trade. If you're going to daytrade futures, try something with a daily volume >250,000 contracts and an open interest at least 75% of it's daily volume. The CME is a volume leader with their E-mini S&P 500 (Avg 800,000 contracts/day) perhaps eclipsing the volume of all of CBOT's products combined.