Can someone explain to me how you can have neg accrued interest when you have no positions past 5 pm....
I am still waiting form an explanation. I did have one overnite trade that i forgot to cover, i was long gbp for 3 days( over the weekend. They charged me the equivalent of 10 points which anywhere else would 0 or 1. This how they make big time money. They take advantage of any overnight positions. IMHO its very scummy. The way around this is trade futures....Anyone know the feed cost on ib for cme.
IB handles interest very equitably and I'm sure there is a proper explanation which you should receive from the CS desk. All interest rates are posted on our site.
I think I realized what they did. I went home long GBP on wed, that deal does not settled till fri, but they charged me 5 days interest and gave me 5 days worth of int on the gbp. Because they overcharge on interest and underpay on int owed to you and they take two more days even though the deal does not settle for them until FRI. This is the only way I can come up with the ridiculous amout of int they charged. I will never take another overnite position with them again. That is robbery. I covered the deal on Thursday
The way Ib deals with interest is very transparent on their site and very fair in my mind. Furthermore, the interest you get on your funds is very high. I don't know of any other broker that gives you higher interest. That said, I tried to trade FOREX with IB and didn't like the way IB handles the accounting side (maybe I couldn't understand it fully). Long story short, I moved to trade currency futures on CME. Liquidity is more than enough. The spreads are as tight as FOREX (1-3 pips) and these futures are integrated much "cleaner" in IB environment. For example, there is no issue with interest because it is priced in the future contract.
I have traded interbank for 20 years. It is not transparent, the calculations are not even on their statements. Interbank gbp/usd is aprox 0 for the weekend, not 10 points. That is a ripeoff. I also use IFX that gives interbank on rolls and they do it base on the proper day count in the fx market. Spread there is 2 points and no brokerage. I am also going to trade futures instead, what is brokerage on 1 contract (125k euro)? Is ther anyone out there that gives a fair deal on cash FX? I am beginning to think not.
The multiple days of interest for holding a position over 5 PM on Wednesday is the industry standard. Spot forex is 2 day deliverable (1 day for USD/CAD) so a trade held on Wednesday after 5PM Eastern time has a position on Thursday in the forex world and that means that it will not be delivered till Monday. Yes, Euro FX on CME is 125K per contract. Cheers, TRADERguy
Yes but is 3 days not 5. Wed contract settles on Fri Thurs contract settles on Mon That is 3 days The only way they could come up with int they charged me assuming they add 1.5% to the US and deduct .5% off the uk is to charge me 5 days. Assuming I was long GBP and short USD Which is if they added wed and thurs also.