IB FX Dealing Network

Kicking, trinfo

Thanks for answering my question. I guess 0.4% doesn't seem too bad for an occasional currency exchange, especially considering how my local bank has a spread of like 1500 pips. LOL.

 

Your funds are kept in base currency (USD). This base currency must be used for deposits and withdrawals. If you trade european stocks then profits will appear in EUR. The IDEAL facility let´s you convert these profits into USD, otherwise you would be unable to withdraw your profits. Well, for losses it´s just the other way around.

IDEAL certainly is not meant for fx trading.

 

does anyone have the inside line on when will IB have a multi currency account for futures - so you can trade US and European futures from one account and margin conversion is done in the background automatically

 

the universal account (as it will be called) is undergoing testing and should be launched sometime during May.

 

Now I can see 20 pips (0.9042 / 0.9062) for EUR/USD.

 

Thanks Def, FX trader,

Is 20 pips average ?

 

As part of this, I'm guessing that they added all those extra non-US exchanges to the route selection popup that comes up when you add a new ticker symbol. It would be nice if it didn't do that for accounts that are not multi-currency (i.e. not show non-USD routes for USD-only accounts).

 

Can someone who trades UK stocks comment on whether the additional taxes shown on the commission schedule are really accurate? They seem quite high:

".5% UK Stamp tax, 1% Irish Stamp tax on purchases"

At minimum (depending on how you read it), this means 1.5% tax on purchases only. If you trade 6000 shares of BP at GBP6 each (equivalent to 1000 US ADR shares), this means a tax on the purchase of GBP540 ($750!), in addition to the GBP36 commission. Is this for real? If so, how can anyone make money trading with this high vig?

Even if it is read to mean the Irish stamp tax only applies to Irish stocks, it's still huge at GBP216 total for the purchase, and GBP36-GBP216 (depending on how you read it) for the sale.

Even the Swiss total of 0.17% vig seems heavy (EUR85 per side on a EUR50K trade).

No comment on whether these prices are competitive with other brokers should be construed. I just want to know if it's accurate.

 

Those taxes are not the fault of IB. They are government regulation.

 

Alan:
I looked over the cost of trading the foreign exchanges and came to the same conclusion you did. It looks to me like Germany is the only country with any promise.

Catoosa