Anyone else get the e-mail about IB no longer granting any margins on stocks with a market cap less than 250 million. Seems like a pretty big change to me and will cause some pretty good liquidations by the time it is implemented this Friday. Can someone suggest a simliar retail firm cost wise without such restrictions? I trade pretty frequently and don't want a per trade commissiion but a per share one.
I think this is a game changer. If they don't reverse the rule, I will be transferring my account to a prime broker. I have a material account with them and can't operate without margin. I'm not sure we will see big moves in stocks as a result of this, however. I could be wrong but I'd think this only effects a small minority of their customer base. It's a terrible business decision. They are assuming a $150 million market cap is inherently risky (or more risky) due to it's size. This is simply wrong. I don't have a name of a retail brokerage firm that is anywhere nearly as good as IB but if your account is large enough there are many small prime brokers that would take you. If you are not big enough you might be shit out of luck. The whole situation is awful. I just registered to post here.
E*Trade has the best policies, even though it's not per share, $8/trade is a good deal (maybe $1k/quarter more in commissions.... oohhhh so much)
Unfortunately the way I trade a per trade commission could easily amount to more than 1K per quarter. I would have to run the numbers to see. Anyone other than E-Trade?
at least this time they give us a notice in advance. i remember the times when they change the rules overnight without single warning or on the middle of the day.. i remember the times when they changed margin requirements on ALL corp bonds from like 30% to 100%,regardless to their credit quality and how liquid they are.
Thats what seems so brutal about this blanket approach. Includes preferreds, closed end fund, etc. Who makes these decisions and based on what?
sometimes it looks like that some of the decisions was made by people who doesn't' have a clue about trading is,but on other hand-they are trying to protect themselves(and my money).they might be overprotective in some cases,but i prefer to be safe,than sorry.. once again this margin changes "rule" will affect my trading significantly..
IB has allot of fees I noticed, along with awkward policies like 30k+ for day trading (versus the SEC rated 25k) Lightspeed has a per share commission, although some don't like their software because it feels 90s. Maybe use another software platform. Also pretty certain Tradestation has a per share option. IMO, ETrade has excellent customer support. It may not seem needed, but if you don't have a RSA encryption device, and your account is literally hacked, it's great to have someone watching to catch it (happened to me). Also all customer service responses happen within the hour, even faster on holidays (ironically).
Penson has not made the same change. Send me an e-mail with some information about your account and I can follow up with a phone call. Bob rmorse@victorsecurities.com