You and I both know this is a crocked industry no better than casino. The positive side is that laws, politicians and many organizations are willing to watch this industry closely to make sure it looks as fair as possible. The PDT rule is a crocked rule and needs to go away.
No matter what some people say the majority will confirm that IB is a good broker and very cheap. No handhelding here, but that was never the intention. The issue about PDT can hardly be considered their fault (although communication concerning this could have been better). The NASD should be regarded as the main culprit. Untill recently I was trading options with good succes but i'm myself affected by this rule and as a result am going to raise some more money, at this point in time it seems the only alternative.
Trade #1 Trading with IB, here's something I ran into today. On the 10:06am ET minute chart, YELL opened at 28.439 and closed at 28.29. I had a stop limit sell order. Stop set at 28.35 limit set at 28.30. Sell did not trigger. Shouldn't it have sold at 28.30 or better once the stop was triggered? Trade #2. Had a stop limit buy on VRTS. Stop at 16.25 limit at 16.30. Stop triggered, then bought at 16.29. Trade #2. After buying VRTS at 16.29 I set a stop limit sell. Stop 16.05 limit at 16.00. Stop triggered at 16.05, sold at 16.04. Didn't hit 16.00. Reversed at 16.03 and is back at 16.12 as of this writing. So, I don't know if it's IB or fate, but I didn't get filled on Trade #1 and ended up having to get out at a lower price. But I got filled on trades at limits "better" than I set. Now because of the SEC rule I'm out of trades until Wednesday (F*#! the SEC), so I can't try to reverse my loss until then. In the meantime, I sit $1995, can't short, this really sucks. Any comments?
Not trying to day trade. Usually try to hold overnight so as not to try to trigger the day trade limits. Only have 2K to play with right now. Thanks for your analysis of the above as to why Trade #1 failed when #2 and #3 didn't.
FWIW, I think IB is great. Cheap rates and a great platform with no committment. In my experience, as I've posted earlier, there is one rep who is consistently very aggressive and pretty obnoxious; if you're a beginner, you might be better off starting out with a service-oriented broker that is more accustomed to handling clients with less experience. I have heard that some of the more traditional brokerages have been offering direct access, ECN routing, and free software + L2 for $10-15 per trade... IB's clients include hedge funds and banks; their reps not only have to deal with these institutional clients, but also John Q Public who has $2k in a margin account and wants to know why he was filled on 100sh @ 74.05 instead of 74.12. IB doesn't advertise great customer service; they advertise a top-notch trading system for professionals, direct order execution geared to professionals, and no payment for order flow (with the exception of ECN liquidity). No offense, but if I were one of those reps and had to deal with JQP calling me and tying me up on the phone with relatively simple (read: annoying) questions, I might get a little impatient too. CAN I GET A WITNESS??!!
I think the best things about IB are the speed of executions, and their simple cheap commissions. I appreciate the strait-forward nature of their commissions. Everyone else I have looked at talks about being cheap, but by the time you work your way to the bottom of their convoluted rates and fees, they are a lot more expensive. My trading style is fairly commission intensive, so this is a big deal to me. I rarely use their customer service, so - while frustrating - the lack of customer service isn't a big deal to me. Most of the time, if there is a real problem, they have it fixed before it becomes a big customer service thing. And, I don't think they are really much worse than the rest of what's out there (unfortunately). IB has lead a lot of the positive changes - like lower commissions - that have occurred in the broker industry, and I respect them for this. Good luck. PS If you find someone that is actually cheaper than IB on a per share basis, please let me know.
IB's customer service is just horrible. Sort of like a DMV clerk on a bad day. If you call with a question CS will say its on the website is there anything else i can help you with today. Then if u ask where on the site, IB customer service will say, sir u need to be more familiar with the IB wedsite so i suggest u explore the site in detail. But there is alot more to a broker than customer service. Luckily IB is very internet user friendly. You can change user subscriptions, add new account features or trade authorization or wire money to your personal bank account free online without calling CS. IB emails confirmations and is great with sending notices using email. Also, with IB you have to do things the IB way, no exceptions. I have no problems with this because it keeps IB costs down and will therefore keep commission lower. Two examples of the IB way. When u wire money into IB u must send the a notice that u are wiring money to our account before u wire them the money. I wired money to IB, somehow i screwed up the wire notice and the money was not placed into my account. I called CS and they told me that the only way to correct the problem was to e mail directly the person that handles incoming deposits at IB. Also a small cap stock i owned was moved to the nyse from nasdaq and the new symbol was shown as invailed at IB. I called CS and they said I need to E mail the person that hanbles that and by monday of the following week the symbol should be up in IB's system. For both of these situations i email IB and the problem was corrected and if it help to keep IB's costs down its OK with me. IB is fast, reliable and cheaper and also very internet user friendly. IB Pays higher interest on credit balances than most brokers and IB will pay u interest on short sales. You can trade most any product on many exchange throughtout the world using multiple foreign currencies. I would recommend IB to anyone.