The title of this thread is interesting. The lower cost commission schedules are all coming in line. IB at the beginning was the greatest thing since sliced bread for those wanting to trade with minimal risk during the learning phase and/or with limited capital. The advent of these lower commissions forced other brokers to step in line and reduce theirs to the mainstream retail traders. Institutional traders wanted a piece of the puzzle as well. I'm sure the mix of retail/institutional traders in terms of percentages for each broker varies, but the clearly obvious nature of lower commissions that everyone wants, other brokers who were once considered "higher end" with higher comms were forced to offer the same product but at lower prices. The competitive edge of IB at lower comms is in jeopardy as everyone else will eventually get to the same equilibrium to compete with the no frills. What will be left standing then is the use of the interface, the reliability of the system and finally the customer service of the company. No one cares about customer service until they need it. As the masses begin to realize that IBs only advantage of lower commissions goes by the wayside, they are left with the a mediocre platform with no customer service. When you get virtually the same commissions with a more reliable broker in system functionality and better customer service, IB is going to go downhill. I still use MBTrading because of this very nature. They are almost the same in equities prices and their futures trading will come down in equilibrium with others like IB soon. But for right now I get excellent customer service and an easy to use platform. When their prices come down..I'll have an across the board great service to continue trading with. IBs only competitive advantage if they don't upgrade their systems and/or customer service, will start to lose the masses in my opinion (price alone won't keep an inferior product in business). The early days of creating the niche are over..now it's about sustaining the niche, and without upgrading and increased competition like MBTrading that I use, it's going to be a rough road ahead. My 2 cents. Chris
dude, could you comment on this a bit more for the programming novice? is this b/c java runs on CLR?? and why is TWS so fast although it is in java? thanks mucho in advance, -b
ChrisRT, imho IB's TWS is a great platform, probably one of the best around. MBTrading only accept clients from 3 or 4 countries (ask them if you don't believe me). They offer a very limited product line (instruments to trade) and their commissions are very high and include high minimum ticket charges. Sure they are not high comparing to ETrade or CyberTrader but those two have lost touch with reality long ago. Don't know why all you guys from the advisory services (RT and a few others) are so keen about MBT and RealTick, but you're the only ones around that are so... a guy from one advisory service I once tried once said in the chat room "many novice traders start with IB.. when they gain experience they move to MBT"....... GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!
newestmember, exactly! IB are a good broker overall but they should smash the competition from the other piker brokers and lower commissions a bit to keep their edge and the loyality of their traders! Hell, if TradeStation could do it.. IB definitely should!
The advantages of trading with IB are enormous. Especially if you are just starting out, and not just commissions. I got very spoiled trading with them. No wire fees, if you request a wire by 12, you get it the same day. No SEC fees (when you are doing volume, especially higher priced stocks, these add up.) The amount of products to trade, probably more then any one broker offers. And so on. shneed
Everyone on here seems to be interested in per share pricing on equities. Is that because you are generally trading small lots?
High minimum ticket charges? High commissions? Sorry, but you're wrong. Actually MB has 2 commission structures to choose from. You might want to do some research before you post inaccurate info. Commission structure is almost identical to IB for stocks except for 501-1000 shares where MB pays .0075 rather than .0050. And unlike IB there are no monthly charges. Bottom line is that it's cheaper for me to trade with MB than IB. http://www.mbtrading.com/fees.asp
Let me just say that we might be forgetting something: IB does have an excellent globex data feed (including market depth). Why pay $50 a month for a data feed that is real time 99.9% of the time, but lags 5 seconds behind in those few seconds per week when you need it most (high volume). I don't know how they did it, but IB's globex feed has not had any noticable lag for at least several months now, no matter what the conditions. I don't know about you, but I think the ability to have non-lagging quotes in your execution platform (TWS) is worth something.